Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “The wild card.” IDAHO: Rep. Mike Simpson, R, is considering introducing a Nevada-style wilderness/development bill that would protect parts of the Boulder-White Cloud and Pioneer Mountains in central Idaho. The Idaho Conservation League is also working with local county commissioners and cattlemen to negotiate […]
Staff
Posted inFebruary 17, 2003: Wyoming at a crossroads
Short Takes
Bruce Babbitt will be the keynote speaker at the 26th Annual Public Lands and Resources Law Review Conference. “Public Lands, Private Gains” will be held at the University of Montana-Missoula on March 13-15. For more information, visit www.umt.edu/ publicland/26conf.htm. To register, call 406/243-6568. Head to Sacramento for the Water Education Foundation’s 20th Annual Executive Briefing […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 2003: Wyoming at a crossroads
Excerpts from Gov. Dave Freudenthal’s inaugural speech Jan. 6, as he took office
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Wyoming at a crossroads.” “For too many decades, we have dreamed of a day when the government of these United States would transfer the ownership of its lands to state or private hands. While this dream may occupy our hearts, it cannot be the […]
Posted inDecember 9, 2002: Life in the wasteland
Superfund: On the Hill… on the ground
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. ON THE HILL: 1980 President Carter signs the Superfund bill into law, funded by $1.6 billion from an excise tax on the chemical and petroleum industries. The newly created Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry assesses the health effects of more than 65,000 […]
Posted inNovember 25, 2002: Planning's poster child grows up
The changing of the guard
Paul Larmer takes the helm of High Country News For the past five months, the High Country Foundation board has been searching for the right person to lead this institution into the future. The board received about 40 applications, from the supremely qualified to the supremely unqualified. They were screened and winnowed and weighed, and […]
Posted inOctober 14, 2002: Democrats kick back: The politics of growth
Democrats kick back
Note: this front-page editor’s note introduces five related articles: “Around the West, the hot races to watch,” “Montanans may take back their dams,” “New Mexico Green lose steam,” “Utahns could kill radioactive dump,” and “State’s big nuke waste fight takes a hit.” This November will be an “off-year” election, but reject the implication that nothing […]
Posted inSeptember 16, 2002: The Royal Squeeze
Learn about everything
Learn about everything from fueling your car with vegetable oil to how Aspen, Colo., manages its “alternative building” at the Fourth Annual Sustainable Communities Symposium, Sept. 20-22 in Crested Butte, Colo. The conference kicks off with words from Janine Benyus, author of Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature (HCN, 7/6/98:Defining a scientific movement), and features workshops […]
Posted inSeptember 16, 2002: The Royal Squeeze
With golden cottonwoods
With golden cottonwoods and monsoon-raised waters, fall is a great time for a boat trip down the San Juan River. So Canyonlands Field Institute, working with the national Elderhostel organization, will leave Bluff, Utah, Oct. 5, for a seven-day trip, exploring Ancestral Puebloan sites and the geology and watershed of the river. The trip is […]
Posted inSeptember 16, 2002: The Royal Squeeze
High Plains Films
High Plains Films, creator of such documentary gems as the prairie dog classic, Varmints, is screening its latest film This is Nowhere at the Temecula Valley International Film Festival in Temecula, Calif. The film investigates the philosophies and motivation of RV enthusiasts who like to camp out in Wal-Mart parking lots. The piece also explores […]
Posted inSeptember 16, 2002: The Royal Squeeze
Island Hoping
Island hoping In Arizona and New Mexico, a unique complex of 27 mountain ranges encompasses vast stretches of desert scrub, grasslands and oak woodlands, and is home to more than 75 species of reptiles. Called the Sky Islands (HCN, 4/26/99:Can science heal the land?), the landscape inspired Aldo Leopold to write that ” … these […]
Posted inSeptember 2, 2002: Backlash
Is it possible …
It is possible for a ranch to maintain a healthy ecosystem during a drought – and stay in business? Ranch expert Kirk Gadzia is leading an Outdoor Classroom on Rangleland Health at Jim and Joy Williams’ ranch near Quemando, N.M., Sept. 14-15. Gadzia, co-author of the National Academy of Sciences book Rangeland Health, believes watershed […]
Posted inSeptember 2, 2002: Backlash
If you’re tired …
If you’re tired of gloomy environmental books, visit the Sopris Foundation’s Web site for its handbook, A Call to Action. Jammed into 32 entertaining pages is everything from Grist Magazine’s “Energy saving tips for the very lazy,” to energy expert Randy Udall’s cerebral link between a Joni Mitchell song and his thoughts on carbon dioxide. […]
Posted inSeptember 2, 2002: Backlash
Visit awhile with Molly …
Visit awhile with Molly Ivins, sharp-tongued Texas columnist, on Sept. 21 at the Western Colorado Congress meeting in Grand Junction, Colo. Inspired by her book, You Got to Dance with Them What Brung You, her discussion will examine – with, inevitably, great sarcastic delivery – how campaign finance distorts the political process. Call the WCC […]
Posted inSeptember 2, 2002: Backlash
Farewell to a great mountain photographer
You’ve probably seen his work in National Geographic or Audubon – or in High Country News – as well as in his photography books. Famed for a transcendental approach to capturing the natural world, Galen Rowell was also an accomplished mountaineer, who inspired and awed his audience with breathtaking, seemingly impossible photographs. Rowell and his […]
Posted inJuly 8, 2002: The anatomy of fire
Dear Friends
“Momentous” is often used inappropriately, but when Maggie Coon used it at a meeting in Park City, Utah, on Saturday morning, June 15, it seemed perfectly scaled. The High Country Foundation board president was describing the task her fellow board members faced in choosing a new leader for the organization that publishes this newspaper; publishes […]
Posted inApril 1, 2002: Move over! Will snowmobile tourism relax its grip on a gateway town?
April Fools
Shrub takes on pesky species By Helen Wheels Wasps, head lice and roaches to be annihilated President Gorge W. Shrub, determined to show that “we take nature as seriously as nurture,” said yesterday that his administration will exterminate all species that might possibly, some day, qualify for listing under the Endangered Species Act. “As long […]
Posted inNovember 19, 2001: Bringing back the bosque
Outspoken Yellowstone ranger gagged
Bob Jackson silenced on salt lick problem
Posted inSeptember 24, 2001: River of dreams
Dear Friends
Award-winning intern Congratulations to former Daily Astorian reporters Karen Mockler and Mike Stark. The pair will share the 4th annual Dolly Connelly Excellence in Environmental Journalism Award for their three-part series on the Columbia River Estuary, titled “Life on the Brink.” The $1,000 annual award was created by Seattle Post-Intelligencer columnist Joel Connelly to honor […]
Posted inAugust 27, 2001: Restoring the range of light
Who mans forest flows?
NATION Streams on Forest Service land may soon be a little more vulnerable. For the past eight years, the Forest Service has been able to insist on “bypass flows,” or minimum instream flows, when towns and other water users divert streams on national forests. The agency says it has the right and responsibility to demand […]
Posted inMarch 12, 2001: Divided Waters
Land Use Conference
Las Vegas Mayor Oscar B. Goodman, Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo., and author John Maclean will speak to planners, attorneys and developers at the Rocky Mountain Land Use Institute’s Land Use Conference, April 19-20, at the University of Denver. Thirty panels and 100 presenters will cover topics such as Western wildfires, smart growth and regional planning. […]