Paul Larmer

When I was 20, I joined a college-abroad program in Kenya, Africa, to study the country’s magnificent wildlife reserves. But my most memorable experience wasn’t the night I nervously watched a herd of elephants crash through our campsite (though that was pretty cool). It came in the dusty, colorful markets of Nairobi. There, walking through […]

The other night, my local irrigation ditch company held a meeting at the VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars). I sat down on folding chairs with about 50 of my neighbors to hear from our elected board about by-law changes and progress on a federally-funded project to put much of our unlined ditch — hand dug […]

It’s election season, and our rural Colorado valley bears the signs of it — many signs, actually, plastered on hills, planted in farmer’s fields, or stuck in front yards like seasonal lawn ornaments. Some have generic messages like “Vote Republican.” Others are more specific, like the signs supporting longtime rancher Mark Roeber, a Republican running […]

Last February, the CEO of Patagonia — perhaps the world’s most conservation-minded outdoor gear and clothing company — spoke to eager young business students and outdoor-industry professionals at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Casey Sheahan’s message was simple: Companies can do right by the environment and society while still turning a profit. Sheahan’s talk […]

I spent most of my awkward teenaged years sequestered in subdivisions among manicured lawns and black-topped cul-de-sacs. Fortunately, when after-school TV got too boring, I could leave the house and go exploring — wandering alone through the scruffy patches of woods and fields that edged our orderly neighborhood outside St. Louis, Mo. I remember the […]

For the past several years, I have marveled at a basketball court planted in the middle of an empty field on the outskirts of Delta, Colo., a town of 9,000 people in rural western Colorado. It’s a good-looking court with a smooth cement surface and nets on the rims. But I never see anyone playing […]

With the flood of news events streaming across our screens these days, little seems truly shocking anymore. We careen from one cataclysm, conflict or scandal to the next, never lingering long on any of them. But sometimes an event is so terrible that it causes all of us to drop whatever we’re doing and reflect. […]

For those of you who had hoped that the Obama administration would oversee the boldest conservation initiatives this country has seen since the days of Richard Milhous Nixon (who signed many of our country’s most important environmental laws), you can now cease hoping. The Great Recession, combined with a resurgent right wing that has exploited […]

A few years ago on a bright spring day, I decided to burn our small hayfield. With perhaps a little too much glee, I dropped a few matches on the edge of the field. For an hour, nothing happened; I could hardly get the grass to light despite going through an entire box of matches. […]