The Idaho Conservation League will showcase eight professional photographers’ work in Images of Wild Idaho, Dec. 4 in Boise. The show is part of ICL’s effort to win wilderness protection for the Boulder-White Cloud and Pioneer Mountains and the Owyhee Canyonlands. www.wildidaho.org 208-345-6933 On Jan. 9 and 10, the second annual Wild and Scenic Environmental […]
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Posted inNovember 10, 2003: San Diego's Habitat Triage
Calendar
The Great Old Broads for Wilderness just printed a new booklet for public lands lovers. “Dung to Dust: How cattle have grazed our public lands to death” includes tales from seven writers who have “camped in cow poop.” www.greatoldbroads.org 970-385-9577 The University of Colorado Natural Resources Law Center and the Colorado School of Mines are […]
Posted inOctober 27, 2003: The Gear Biz
Calendar
The Water Education Foundation will present a one-day program, Climate Change and California Water Resources, in Sacramento, Calif., on Nov. 6. Scientists and government officials will discuss the regional effects of climate change in California and their implications for the state’s water supply. www.watereducation.org/briefings.asp. 916-444-6240 The organizers of Connecting Mountain Islands and Desert Seas have […]
Posted inOctober 13, 2003: The Big Story Written Small
Calendar
The San Juan Mountains Association will host a conference, Bridges to Cultural Stewardship: Building Respect for People and Places, at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colo., on Oct. 24-26. The symposium will explore strategies for protecting the region’s diverse heritage and resources. Visit www.sjma.org or call 970-375-9272 for more information. If you can’t make it […]
Posted inSeptember 29, 2003: Harvesting Poison
Calendar
The 12th annual Symposium of the California Exotic Pest Plant Council runs Oct. 2-4 in Kings Beach, Calif. Land managers and researchers will speak on “Planning Weed Management for Ecosystem Recovery.” Call 510-525-1502 or visit www.caleppc.org. The University of Montana is sponsoring the 27th Annual Public Land Law Conference and Plum Creek Lecture Series in […]
Posted inSeptember 29, 2003: Harvesting Poison
Connections to your kitchen
The next time you reach for these three popular foods, consider this sampler of the chemicals commonly applied to them in the fields, and the potential impacts to farmworkers’ health if the pesticides are used improperly. Apples Azinphosmethyl (AZM), a pesticide, can cause nausea, convulsions, weakness, respiratory distress, headaches, eye injuries and neurological damage that […]
Posted inSeptember 15, 2003: The West's Biggest Bully
Calendar
The Rocky Mountain Land Institute is holding its 12th Annual Land Use Continuing Education Conference on Oct. 16-17 in Denver. For registration information, call 303-871-6239. Do you enjoy storytelling, sheep and Basque culture? Then get thee to Idaho on Oct. 10-12 for the Trailing of the Sheep Festival. The weekend-long festival ends with a parade […]
Posted inSeptember 1, 2003: Courting the Bomb
Calendar
Colorado State University is holding its 10th Annual Conference on Tailings and Mine Waste on Oct. 12-15 in Vail. For more information or to register, call Linda Hinshaw at 970-491-6081, or log onto www.tailings.org. The Environmental Protection Agency is holding its Brownfields 2003: Growing a Greener America Conference in Portland, Ore., on Oct. 27-29. Registration […]
Posted inAugust 18, 2003: Where the Antelope (and the Oil Companies) Play
Calendar
The 16th annual Arizona Hydrological Society’s Symposium will be held in Mesa on September 17-20. This year’s theme is “Sustainability Issues of Arizona’s Regional Watersheds.” To register, call Pete Kroopnick at 602-567-3850 or log onto www.azhydrosoc.org. The Water Education Foundation is holding a tour of Northern California’s water facilities and fisheries from September 24-26. Participants […]
Posted inAugust 4, 2003: Pipe Dreams
Calendar
The Seattle Audubon Society has field trips planned through September, including a tour of the lower Duwamish River and a geological look at Mount Rainier. For more information, call 206-523-4483 or visit www.seattleaudubon.org. The first statewide Gunnison Sage Grouse Summit will be held in the Telluride, Colo., area on Sept. 24-25. Until Aug. 15, the […]
Posted inJune 23, 2003: 'Sound science' goes sour
Inside HCN
“If the EPA is going to dive into prime time, why not do it Hollywood-style? Take the leftover $28 million from the dregs of the Superfund account and put on a reality show!” In “Who needs Superfund when we have reality TV,” Joshua Zaffos considers the EPA’s plan to clean up pollution through a television […]
Posted inJune 9, 2003: How we see the West
Calendar
Western Writers of America and Western State College are hosting the 3rd Annual Writers Workshop in Gunnison, Colo., on July 10-14. To register for Writing the West, go to www.writingthewest.com or call Larry at 970-943-3035. Head to John Day, Ore., for the fifth annual SolWest Renewable Energy Fair on July 25-27. The fair will feature […]
Posted inJune 9, 2003: How we see the West
Inside HCN
New from Writers on the Range “The jacket of a popular author’s book says that she lives on a ‘40-acre ranch.’ No real rancher would care to make that statement. Similarly, only uninformed journalists could write, ‘Sen. Jones lives on his 10-acre emu ranch.’ The correct way to write that sentence would be, ‘Mr. Jones […]
Posted inMay 26, 2003: A losing battle
Inside HCN
Radio High Country News has released the first of a three-part series on fire in the West. The series includes on-the-ground reports and interviews with the scientists, managers policy-makers and writers who are framing today’s debate over fire policy. Listen online at www.hcn.org/radio. Are animal-rights activists leading the environmental movement astray? Arizona writer Dave Gowdey […]
Posted inMay 26, 2003: A losing battle
Fire in the West
A losing battle High Country News launches its redesigned print edition with a critical look at fire in the West. Since the 1960s, the ‘let it burn’ approach to wildfire has gained wider and wider acceptance. But as fires increasingly come up against the West’s phenomenal population growth – and as some scientists warn that […]
Posted inMarch 31, 2003: Tinkering with Nature
The Latest Wrinkle
Dubois, Wyo., has announced a name change. The town council voted in February to change the name of the community to “Doo Wah Diddy.” “We thought it sounded more American — you know, patriotic,” explained Mayor Roy Bungee. “We want our men and women in uniform to know we’re not a town full of Frenchies.” […]
Posted inMarch 31, 2003: Tinkering with Nature
Dear Friends
This isn’t the first time … Just when you think you’re doing something really revolutionary, you learn it’s all been done before. In preparation for redesigning High Country News, we dug back into the archives to see what the paper has looked like over the 33 years of its existence. It turns out this won’t […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2003: Bracing against the tide
Short Takes
Learn more about the benefits and challenges of local food production at the “Connecting Through Local Foods” conference, March 28-29, at the College of Southern Idaho in Twin Falls. The conference will feature keynote speaker Gary Paul Nabhan, and cover topics from seed saving to farm bills, and marketing to alternative pest control. For more […]
Posted inMarch 3, 2003: The Wild Card
Thank you, readers
Thank you, readers! The Spreading the News Campaign came to a successful conclusion Dec. 31, 2002. Your generous contributions have provided a stunning $1.36 million to support High Country News’ new media and intern programs. With your help, we’re reaching millions of Westerners: Radio High Country News, our weekly half-hour show, is now broadcast on […]
Posted inMarch 3, 2003: The Wild Card
Peaks and valleys: Protected wilderness by year
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “The wild card.” The 1964 Wilderness Act instantly protected 9.1 million acres of wilderness. Since then, the wilderness system has grown to over 106 million acres. Much of that came in the late ’70s and mid-’80s, as wilderness areas identified by the Forest Service’s […]