I was over 80 when I found myself in a college classroom with 20-year-olds, wondering how to bridge the age gap and teach them something useful about the conservation movement in America and my role in it. I began by remarking that it must be hard for them to believe that I was once their […]
Michael Frome
Posted inWotr
Defenders of public lands are needed now
Gifford Pinchot, pioneer in American forestry and conservation, learned the hard way about political power and influence. In his autobiography, Breaking New Ground, he recorded going West late in the 19th century to study Western forests. Instead, he discovered that commercial interests controlled and exploited land and people. Pinchot wrote: “Principalities like the Homestake Mine […]
Posted inWotr
Fee demo on our public lands is a rip-off
If there’s a basic flaw in the government’s Recreation Fee Demonstration Program, or “fee demo,” it’s that it represents a form of regressive taxes, or double taxation. We, the people, already pay taxes for the management of public lands, and now, under fee demo, we are required to pay again for their use. That strikes […]
Posted inDecember 6, 1999: Peggy Godfrey's long, strange trip
‘Appropriate balance’ not pertinent at Petroglyph
Dear HCN, I was glad to see your coverage of the crisis at Petroglyph National Monument in Albuquerque (HCN, 10/25/99). While in New Mexico three years ago, I spent a day exploring that monument. With its eloquent, ageless images, it impressed me as a treasure of transcendent value, affording civilization a new and better way […]
Posted inMay 30, 1994: Can mining come clean?
Is “natural regulation’ leading to unnatural results?
Karl Hess Jr., in Rocky Times in Rocky Mountain National Park – An Unnatural History, raises ethical questions about the future of Rocky Mountain National Park, “a unique, irreplaceable wonder, a shimmering blue strip of hope on the prairie horizon.” Combining eloquence and detailed research, Hess calls for drastic changes to ensure that good stewardship […]
Posted inApril 24, 1989: HCN's Guide to Outdoor Education in the West
Outdoor educators must stop playing it safe
My theories of education begin with the principle that learning derives from life, all of life, as an unending process from birth to death. Download entire issue to view this article: http://country-survey-collabs.info/issues/21.8/download-entire-issue%3C/p%3E