Note: this article is one of several in this issue about the Endangered Species Act. VANCOUVER, Wash. – Environmentalists chanted, “Habitat, habitat, have to have the habitat.” Some carried stuffed animals and paper fish. A straggly line of loggers dressed in prison garb marched past them, wearing buttons proclaiming “Property Rights ESA Hostage.” Inside the […]
Kathie Durbin
Posted inFebruary 20, 1995: No more ignoring the obvious: Idaho sucks itself dry
Forest activists retrench and grope for support
Nearly 400 West Coast forest activists who gathered in Ashland, Ore., last month were faced with a sobering civics lesson: Their foes in Congress and statehouses throughout the West had captured the populist high ground. The fourth Western Ancient Forest Conference, sponsored by the Ashland-based environmental group Headwaters, is an annual gathering of the forest […]
Posted inDecember 12, 1994: Shrink to fit
Judge hints that Clinton’s forest plan is dead
SEATTLE, Wash. – A federal judge in Seattle is considering sending President Clinton’s Northwest forest plan back to the government for more protection for owls and salmon. Jittery forest advocates admit that such a ruling could be a mixed blessing. It could put virtually all remaining old-growth forests off-limits to logging; it could also fuel […]
Posted inNovember 14, 1994: Land grant universities
A small town in Oregon gets ugly
After tarred-and-feathered effigies of two environmental activists were strung up in the center of Joseph, Ore., Sept. 30, the local newspaper headlined its story: “Enviros can learn a lot from a couple of dummies.” Some residents then organized an economic boycott aimed at driving the two environmentalists out of town. Were these tactics reminiscent of […]
Posted inOctober 31, 1994: Water for the taking
If you hear the alarm, stop breathing
That doesn’t mean take a deep breath and hold it, says the man at the front of the room. It means STOP BREATHING. Pull on your gas mask, clear it of air to get a tight seal, and breathe through it until further notice. No one gets into the new Chemical Agent Disposal Facility at […]
Posted inOctober 17, 1994: As elections near, green hopes wilt
The progress of freewheeling consensus jeopardized as feds pull back
Early in 1993, some Oregon folks who shared little but a fierce love for their valley met to talk things over on Jack Shipley’s deck high above the Applegate River. Dwain Cross, owner of an Ashland logging company, wondered if there was a way the federal government could resume selling timber despite court injunctions blocking […]
Posted inOctober 3, 1994: Subdividing the desert: Should there be a vote?
Ranchers arrested at wildlife refuge
The arrest of rancher Dwight Hammond for running cattle on a wildlife refuge provokes a wise-use backlash in Oregon.
Posted inSeptember 19, 1994: Flame and blame in the Northwest
Flame and blame in the Northwest
Loggers urge fire sales
Posted inSeptember 19, 1994: Flame and blame in the Northwest
Ambitious ecosystem management advances east
WALLA WALLA, Wash. – The ground rules are posted in prominent view of everybody in the room: Be courteous. No verbal or personal attacks. It might sound like seventh grade, but this meeting is for grown-ups. The leaders of the nation’s most ambitious experiment in ecosystem management are taking questions from an audience of timber […]
Posted inSeptember 19, 1994: Flame and blame in the Northwest
Shame and threats impel Eastside plan
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, Ambitious ecosystem management advances east. A range of pressures – political scientific, and legal – shifted inland, over the crest of the Cascade Mountains, during the past year and a half, bringing leviathan ecosystem management with them. The two regions on opposite sides […]
Posted inSeptember 19, 1994: Flame and blame in the Northwest
Eastside activists feel scarce and don’t back down
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, Ambitious ecosystem management advances east. They know their turf. Often they’re all alone in their attempts to rescue public lands from overcutting, overgrazing and overappropriation of scarce water essential to native fish. In the Northwest, inland from the Cascade Mountains, environmental activists can’t […]
Posted inSeptember 19, 1994: Flame and blame in the Northwest
First offering of Westside plan is ‘worst’
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, Ambitious ecosystem management advances east. Bucking strong opposition that includes the governor of Oregon, the Clinton administration has picked a controversial old-growth timber sale in the heart of a roadless area as its first major offering under the President’s Northwest Forest Plan. The […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 1994: Can she save ecosystems?
Can she save ecosystems?
Mollie Beattie got an uncomfortable preview of the realpolitik that still pervades the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service last summer while she waited for Senate confirmation as the agency’s director. One Republican senator after another anonymously exercised the right to place a “hold” on her confirmation. Some, no doubt, were simply curious about this 46-year-old […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 1994: Can she save ecosystems?
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: A chronology
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, Can she save ecosystems? 1885: Congress creates the Section of Economic Ornithology within the U.S. Department of Agriculture and appoints prominent naturalist C. Hart Merriam to head it. Merriam begins an exhaustive survey of the geographic distribution of the nation’s birds and […]