Port Orford, Ore., is working hard to create a new kind of community-based, sustainable fisheries management for the over-fished ocean.
Also in this issue: Environmentalists and immigration activists have a few doubts about President Bush’s proposed immigration reform policy.
Would quotas save the seas, or just big business?
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Mending the Nets.” Far from the high seas, a storm of controversy is raging over a tool that some say is the solution to a chaotic, ecologically damaging system of fisheries management — but that others say could send small-boat owners under. Currently, fishermen…
Follow-up
The Forest Service is selling its final management plan for California’s Giant Sequoia National Monument as a compromise, but not all environmentalists are buying it (HCN, 6/9/03: Giant sequoias could get the ax). The plan would allow logging on 10,000 of the monument’s 327,000 acres in order to control future wildfires. Chad Hanson of the…
Take the initiative
Conservationists should support the Owyhee Initiative, the compromise management plan for more than 3 million wild acres of southwestern Idaho (HCN, 12/8/04: Riding the middle path). If the wildly divergent interest groups that developed the initiative can hold together, Idaho Republican Sen. Mike Crapo promises to shepherd the plan through Congress this year. Idaho’s Owyhee…
Questioning the New World Order
“The Gear Biz” by Hal Clifford (HCN, 10/27/03: The Gear Biz) acknowledged the deleterious effects of NAFTA and the WTO on U.S. manufacturing jobs, but failed to provide the perspective of U.S. workers put out of work by such policies. What do the Navajos who used to work in the Osprey textile factory have to…
Extinction is forever
I was very moved by Ben Long’s essay on the impending extinction of Montana’s sturgeon (HCN, 9/29/03: Extinction — by the clock). His piece captured in a few words the finality of the extinction of species that link modern man to prehistory. I was reminded of the evocative words of William Beebe (1906): “The beauty…
Indian poll power
How many American Indian voters does it take to elect an official? The answer should matter to every candidate in this election year, since American Indian votes could swing elections in districts throughout Montana, South Dakota, New Mexico, Nevada and Arizona. NativeVote 2004, spearheaded by the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), an organization of…
Calendar
The 22nd Annual Salmonid Restoration Conference, “Collaborative Watershed Efforts for Salmonid Recovery,” will be held in Davis, Calif., March 17-20. Workshops, field tours and technical sessions will focus on topics affecting recovery efforts for salmon and steelhead and associated ecosystems locally, regionally, and globally. www.calsalmon.org 707-223-1770 The Society of Petroleum Engineers International Conference on Health,…
Restoration evolution
“Ecological restoration” has a good ring to it. So good, in fact, that the two words are used by everyone from the environmentalists at The Nature Conservancy to the heads of America’s biggest corporations. While conservation groups look to restoration as a way to hasten the recovery of native ecosystems harmed by agriculture or industry,…
Renewable energy made simple
For most people, living with the energy supplied by Mother Nature is more noble aspiration than practical reality. But thanks to Rex Ewing’s new book, Power With Nature: Solar and Wind Energy Demystified, everyone who embraces renewable energy in theory but not in practice, is now officially out of excuses. Ewing tackles a complex, technical…
Immigration reform from Washington, DC
Bush’s reform policy would give employers willing workers — and workers a temporary stay in the U.S.
Generation gap
The laws meant to protect future generations may not last one more
Heard Around the West
THE WEST Democrats can get really lonely in the West. In rural areas, some are even driven to change their party affiliation to Republican. They’re not converts — heaven forbid — they just want to vote in the primaries where the real choices get made. Now, there’s a weblog to bond Western dissidents. It’s called…
Uranium mill or dump?
Locals hope to stop a Utah mill from finding new work
Phelps Dodge looks to revive mining in the Copper State
Would the mine be a boon to southern Arizona, or a taxpayer rip-off?
Saving a sacred lake: Zuni activist Pablo Padilla
Pablo Padilla is lying low right now, but don’t expect him to remain quiet for long. The 29-year-old law student at the University of New Mexico and member of the Zuni Tribe was an instrumental player in his tribe’s recent victory against an Arizona energy company (HCN, 8/18/03: Follow-up). He’s now trying to be just…
Wilderness areas for the ocean
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Mending the Nets.” In the absence of good science about how much fishing a healthy ocean can handle, some fishermen and many environmentalists say a cautious approach is best. They want to place specific swaths of the sea off-limits to fishermen. These “no-take marine…
A new breed of marketers gives fishing towns a leg up
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Mending the Nets.” COOS BAY, Ore. — Abandoned fish-processing plants cling to the harbor’s edge in this town of 15,000 along the Oregon coast. Less than 20 years ago, there were nine places where local fishermen could sell their fish. Now there are four.…
Does Wal-Mart really need our tax dollars?
Typical of shopping centers built decades ago, Alameda Square in Denver is a cheap, single-story strip of stores. It’s ugly and rundown. But that does not deter shoppers: Mostly Asian Americans, they come from miles around to patronize more than a dozen Asian-owned businesses, including two grocery stores, two restaurants, a hair salon, a clothing…
Mending the Nets
After years of a disastrous free-for-all on the sea, one Oregon fishing community searches for a sustainable future
A plan for Spaceship Earth
I’ve always gotten a chuckle out of the bumper sticker that says, “Earth First! We’ll mine the other planets later.” But now that President George W. Bush has decided that America should expand its reach to the moon and Mars, my laugh is becoming a groan. Oh, I know that Bush’s plans for a permanent…
Dear Friends
COLORADO INTERNS Colorado native and high-tech refugee Jodi Peterson has decided to write about her passion, the beautiful but threatened American West. After 15 years of penning online help and users’ guides for Hewlett-Packard, she has taken a sabbatical to become an intern at HCN. Now, Jodi looks forward to the freedom of writing without…