Thank you for another excellent issue, and especially Claire Thompson’s book review (“The wisdom of trees,” June 2021). As a retired national park ranger-naturalist, with two forestry degrees, I’m painfully aware of the split within the forestry community. Trees are finally getting some recognition, and not just as homes for the cute fuzzy aboveground beasts […]
Eric Burr
Posted inFebruary 20, 2012: How Arizona's culture helped shape the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords
The error of the well-intentioned
Thank you for the billboard and “untrammeled” wilderness articles (HCN, 1/23/12, “The law, the lookout and the logging town” & “Billboard vs. Democracy”). Boycotting Utah and/or monkey-wrenching seem like the only viable options for correcting these corporate billboard crimes. Wilderness Watch, by contrast, is well intentioned, but apparently ignorant of the harm it’s doing. Wilderness […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 2003: Wyoming at a crossroads
Beyond rangeland conflict
Dear HCN, The debate over cows on public lands (HCN, 1/20/03: THE GREAT RANCHING DEBATE) missed the best book I’ve yet read on the subject. HCN probably reviewed it back in 1995 when it was published, but its emphasis on national dialogue between opposing factions and realistically looking at what actually happens on the ground […]
Posted inOctober 27, 1997: Deconstructing the age of dams
Get the fundamentalists out of Yellowstone
Dear HCN, Thank you for an outstanding Yellowstone issue (HCN, 9/15/97). Ecologist Charles Kay’s opinion alone was worth the price of a year’s subscription. I’m an ex-park ranger with years of sad experience with the fundamentalism that has taken over the environmental movement. Kay is justified in stating that “Environmentalists believe that North America was […]