A just-announced federal plan to merge the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement into the much-larger Bureau of Land Management is drawing mixed reactions. Some environmental groups wonder if changing the agency’s bureaucratic home will end its long-running coziness with industry. Yet critics of the proposal view it as one more attempt from the […]
Jodi Peterson
Posted inOctober 31, 2011: Omens from a Vanished Sea
Wanted: a few good board members
Wanted: A few good board membersThe High Country News Board of Directors and several staff members met in late September in Reno, Nev. They approved a new budget and discussed everything from HCN‘s editorial coverage and the new technologies shaping the media industry to the composition of the board itself; currently, it has 10 members […]
Posted inGoat
State parks problems
State budget shortfalls have hurt many public amenities – including state parks. Starting in 2009, many Western states cut back on hours, staffing, and maintenance at their parks, and even closed some outright. Just about the only park system that didn’t suffer was Oregon’s, which uses lottery money to fund its parks. Now, in California, […]
Posted inOctober 17, 2011: A Burning Problem
Good policy and good intentions won’t stop big wildfires
Southwestern wildfires are known to be fast-moving and destructive, but this summer’s conflagrations astonished even veteran observers. On May 29, two cousins abandoned a campfire in a ponderosa pine forest in eastern Arizona. The resulting Wallow Fire, encouraged by dry, windy weather, burned for the next five weeks. It became the largest wildfire in the […]
Posted inGoat
Calories and economics on public lands
Back in the glitzy ’80s, uber-designer Diane von Furstenberg gained notoriety for telling women “you can never be too rich or too thin.” Turns out she was wrong on both counts. But those central obsessions of Americans, weight and wealth, have become a lens through which to view the benefits of a surprising array of […]
Posted inSeptember 19, 2011: Redemption
Hope and redemption
Seven years ago, Daniel McCool, a political science professor and director of the American West Center at the University of Utah, wrote an eloquent essay for this magazine, in which he said, “A dam slated for the wrecking ball is a kinetic form of politics — falling concrete that embodies the energy of a whole […]
Posted inSeptember 5, 2011: For the love of hummers
Calling all science nerds
One August many years ago, I joined a weeklong expedition to Michigan’s thickly forested Isle Royale to help gather information about the local moose and wolves. Six of us volunteers, led by a biologist, bushwhacked all day through dense underbrush searching for moose antlers and bones. Whenever we found them, we took measurements, recorded more […]
Posted inSeptember 5, 2011: For the love of hummers
HCN stories win awards
Our May 17, 2010, feature “Accidental Wilderness” by David Wolman just received recognition in the Society of Environmental Journalists 2010-2011 Awards for Reporting on the Environment. The story took third place in the category “Kevin Carmody Award for Outstanding In-depth Reporting, Small Market.” And in the 2011 Excellence in Journalism Awards from the Native American […]
Posted inGoat
Making room for flycatchers
The endangered Southwestern willow flycatcher may get an additional 1,300 river miles of critical habitat set aside for it in 6 Western states, according to a new proposal from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The six-inch-long, olive and yellow bird nests in the dense vegetation along Southwestern waterways. In 2005, the agency set aside […]
Posted inAugust 22, 2011: Looking for Balance in Navajoland
The Taj Mahal, the pyramids – and HCN?
Sam Fox crossed visiting HCN off his personal “bucket list” when he came by our Paonia, Colo., office with Erin Drake. Sam pitched some cool story ideas and noted his successful track record — over the past decade he’s suggested other ideas that we’ve used for stories. The Fort Collins, Colo., duo chatted with Executive […]
Posted inGoat
Surf and turf update
After two decades of restoration, roughly 1,700 gray wolves now roam the Northern Rockies. But constant court battles over their management led Congress to end federal protection in May, using a budget rider to sidestep the Endangered Species Act (see our May 30 story). Last week, U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy unhappily upheld the rider, […]
Posted inAugust 8, 2011: Ganjanomics
Welcome, new interns!
Two new interns have just joined our editorial department for six months of “journalism boot camp” here in Paonia, Colo. “I was the shy nerd in school,” says Kimberly Hirai of Boise, Idaho. When she and her brother ordered pizza as kids, they fought over who had to talk on the phone. She’s more outgoing […]
Posted inGoat
Bad bills on the rise
Two bills being considered in the House continue Republican-led efforts to weaken environmental protections. HR. 1581, the Wilderness and Roadless Area Release Act, would drop protections on at least 43 million acres of public land. Roadless national forest lands and wilderness study areas would be “released” for unfettered access to off-highway vehicles, oil and gas […]
Posted inJuly 25, 2011: The Global West
HCN enters the digital world
On a beautiful blue-skied June weekend, the High Country News Board of Directors gathered at our headquarters in Paonia, Colo., to discuss everything from how the editorial staff develops story ideas to the ongoing evolution of digital technology. A presentation by staff on plans to roll out HCN content for mobile phones, tablet computers and […]
Posted inGoat
A walk in the (burned) woods
The largest fire in New Mexico’s recorded history, the Las Conchas, is 45 percent contained; its footprint covers 146,000 acres (not all of that land has been charred, though, since wildfires burn in patches). The blaze started on the afternoon of June 26 when an aspen tree fell onto a powerline southwest of Los Alamos. […]
Posted inJune 27, 2011: Hydrofracked?
See you in July
This will be the last issue you receive for a month; we skip an issue four times a year. Look for the next HCN to hit your mailbox around July 25, and in the meantime, visit our website, hcn.org, for fresh blog posts, new Writers on the Range columns and other exciting content. Summer visitorsBen […]
Posted inJune 27, 2011: Hydrofracked?
Wildfires burn big in Arizona and New Mexico
In the Southwest, this summer’s fire season looks like the worst since 2002. Years of severe drought and fire suppression have left Arizona and New Mexico forests loaded with fuel and drier than diner toast, and this winter’s La Niña weather pattern parched them even more. The massive Wallow Fire has surpassed the 2002 Rodeo-Chediski […]
Posted inGoat
Spotties get a new plan
The gigantic Wallow fire now searing Arizona and New Mexico has burned a lot of things, including several thousand acres of habitat for the threatened Mexican spotted owl (not to be confused with its more notorious cousin, the Northern spotted owl, once blamed for the demise of logging in the Northwest). Now, the U.S. Fish […]
Posted inJune 13, 2011: Under the Flight Path
Rafters and writers come to call
In early May, subscribers John and Susan Lobonc stopped by our Paonia, Colo., office while on a driving tour of national parks. They came all the way from Naperville, Ill., and arrived just as rainstorms were dousing the region. Their spirits were undampened, though, and they were excited to see the West they read about […]
Posted inGoat
Fire and ice
Some say the world will end in fire,Some say in ice. Those opening lines of the old Robert Frost poem seem to apply to the West’s public lands this spring. As out-of-control wildfires scorch the Southwest, more northerly regions are still waiting for the snow to finish melting; both problems are shutting down forest access. […]