In a small corner of popular music, there are songs that have been written and sung in the haunting voices of animals, and the Canadian singer-songwriters Gordon Lightfoot and Ian Tyson have written what I think are the best of them. In Lightfoot’s “Whispers of the North,” a loon speaks: whispers of the northsoon I […]
Pat Ford
Posted inWotr
Who are the true Idaho conservatives?
Idaho Gov. Butch Otter has worked hard for six years to turn the state’s Highway 12 into a corridor for sending massive, 200-foot-long mega-loads of heavy equipment to Alberta, Canada, for tar sands extraction. But it’s not working out. First, state court verdicts in Idaho and Montana, plus botched operations by mega-loads haulers, held things […]
Posted inWotr
Elwha, a story of today’s West
The heart of the new book, Elwha: A River Reborn, is a photograph of Elwha Dam taken in 2010, one year before it came down. Framed by canyon walls and a mossy rock garden, two thin cascades, leaking through the dam, join and fall down into the Elwha River, to embrace a dark pool just below […]
Posted inWotr
Singing about a land where free rivers flow on
Woody Guthrie is 100 years old this year, and alive as you or me. Music has a way of cutting the corner on mortality. What do you hear in his songs about America? I’m swept into a tangle of love, gratitude, unease, anger, respect, heartbreak, awe, curiosity and joy. His songs contain that jumble of […]
Posted inAugust 20, 2012: Troubled Taos
Conservation-business alliances
I enjoyed “The Hardest Climb” (HCN, 7/23/12), Greg Hanscom’s cover story about the outdoor recreation industry’s influence on conservation and public policy, as seen through the lens of Black Diamond Equipment and its CEO, Peter Metcalf. I’ll admit self-interest while suggesting one meaty strand that Greg touches on but doesn’t develop: the steady growth of working […]
Posted inWotr
Another chance emerges for salmon
This fall, the most endangered salmon on earth is giving us another chance to save it from extinction. Snake River sockeye salmon are small as salmon go, with a blue sheen when they leave the Pacific Ocean. That sheen has burnt bright red 850 miles and two months later by the time they reach their […]
Posted inMarch 21, 2005: An Empire Built on Sand
Let’s bury the word ‘environmentalism’
I kept hoping as I read “The Death of Environmentalism” that Shellenberger and Nordhaus meant their title literally, that the repetitive thud of the word across their text would lead them to suggest burying the word. They didn’t. But I will. Let’s stop using “environmentalism.” It’s a lousy word, not least for its harsh embedded […]
Posted inJuly 30, 2001: Not in our back yard
Tribes doing most for salmon, feds least
Dear HCN, I cringed at the photograph of myself on your June 18 cover, but I guess it is churlish to blame HCN for the distance between my self-image and how I actually look. So on to substance. It was a good article on the complex intersections of salmon, dams, energy and money. I’d like […]
Posted inJanuary 22, 1996: At Hanford, the real estate is hot
Foundation’s help was invaluable
Dear HCN, Mike Medberry’s report on big foundations, national conservation coalitions and grassroots conservation was thoughtful and respectful of the subject’s complexities (HCN, 10/16/95). The Pew Charitable Trusts was featured in Mike’s piece. Many conservationists are not wild about Pew. I have experience of Pew as an employee of a grantee and as steering committee […]
Posted inJuly 25, 1994: 'Unranchers' reach for West's state lands
Jim Thrash: A solid man
Jim Thrash, 44, who died July 6 in the Glenwood Springs, Colo., fire, was a McCall, Idaho, conservationist. That is how I came to know him. Jim was an outfitter in the heart of Idaho – Salmon River country. For several years he chaired the wilderness committee of the Idaho Outfitters and Guides Association. He […]
Posted inApril 18, 1994: The salmon win one
Salmon: the Clinton-Babbitt train wreck
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, The salmon win one. In 1991, at the Citizens’ Salmon Congress in Hood River, Ore., Michelle DeHart of the Fish Passage Center spoke eloquently – again – about the death of salmon. The center is the tribal and Northwest states’ office that monitors the […]
Posted inApril 18, 1994: The salmon win one
A guide to the players
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, The salmon win one. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built and operates four federal dams on the lower Snake River, and four more on the Columbia River. Fishery agencies estimate these dams and reservoirs account for about 95 percent of all human-caused mortality […]
Posted inSeptember 7, 1992: Developer builds in a wilderness
Should the ‘Frank’ be one forest?
An influential congressman’s proposal to create the nation’s first all-wilderness national forest in central Idaho has the Forest Service scrambling. Download entire issue to view this article: http://country-survey-collabs.info/issues/24.16/download-entire-issue%3C/p%3E
Posted inJuly 1, 1991: The Snake's imperiled salmon: A personal call to act
The Snake’s imperiled salmon: A personal call to act
I want to tell you about a fish, a place named for it, and a recent weekend there that I will not forget. Download entire issue to view this article: http://country-survey-collabs.info/issues/23.12/download-entire-issue%3C/p%3E
Posted inApril 22, 1991: Special issue: Northwest salmon at the crossroads
And now — the Last Salmon Ceremony?
The big hydroelectric dams stand as symbols of the crossroads now confronting the Pacific Northwest’s salmon and steelhead. A century ago these wild fish numbered some 16 million. Now their annual count is dropping below 1 million. Download entire issue to view this article: http://country-survey-collabs.info/issues/23.7/download-entire-issue%3C/p%3E
Posted inApril 22, 1991: Special issue: Northwest salmon at the crossroads
How the basin’s salmon-killing system works
The Columbia Basin’s eight mainstem dams account for nearly all of the Northwest’s annual salmon slaughter, and could be modified. Download entire issue to view this article: http://country-survey-collabs.info/issues/23.7/download-entire-issue%3C/p%3E
Posted inMarch 26, 1990: Is there room for everyone?
Old-growth forests fight global warming
Three Northwest forest researchers conclude that converting old-growth to young forests won’t slow down global warming. Their results may help settle one question in the Northwest’s intense debate over its remaining ancient forests. Download entire issue to view this article: http://country-survey-collabs.info/issues/22.6/download-entire-issue%3C/p%3E
Posted inFebruary 26, 1990: Is the Forest Service changing?
Is the Forest Service changing?
A former timber sale planner says “it’s all talk.” To read this article, click the “View a PDF from the original” link below, or download the entire issue: http://country-survey-collabs.info/issues/22.4/download-entire-issue This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Is the Forest Service changing?.
Posted inDecember 4, 1989: The West's fouled waters, Part II: The new reclamation
Idaho points the way to stream quality
For a variety of reasons, Idaho is the first Western state to seriously attempt to control nonpoint source water pollution. Download entire issue to view this article: http://country-survey-collabs.info/issues/21.23/download-entire-issue%3C/p%3E
Posted inJuly 3, 1989: Tumbleweeds triumphant
Idaho wilderness issue is tied in knots
Conservationists haven’t yet figured out how to blow the whistle on McClure without also seeming to be attacking Andrus. Download entire issue to view this article: http://country-survey-collabs.info/issues/21.13/download-entire-issue%3C/p%3E