In 1926, the U.S. Forest Service first found blister rust, a deadly fungus, on high-elevation whitebark pines in Montana. Since then, the Asian invader has spread through several species of five-needled pines in the West; it was first discovered in Arizona in 2009. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife service is now considering whether whitebark pines, […]
Stephanie Paige Ogburn
Posted inFebruary 21, 2011: Palin, politics, and predator control
Jeff Rice on documenting the West in sound
Hear the sounds Jeff Rice collects around the West and learn about why he does it. You can catch High Country Views approximately every other week. Available via our RSS feed, and for download now through iTunes.
Posted inGoat
Exploring rural communities, food and environment
With this week’s release of its Atlas of Small Town and Rural America, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has given citizens a nifty tool to explore data on the lesser-populated parts of the country. The interactive atlas provides a nice mix of statistics, combining numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, […]
Posted inFebruary 21, 2011: Palin, politics, and predator control
Audio librarian Jeff Rice captures the sounds of the West
Jeff Rice discusses how he collects sound and plays some of the sounds from the Western Soundscape Archive
Posted inGoat
USDA to farmers: plant genetically modified crops!
The biotech fairy must be whispering a whole lot of sweet nothings (made with genetically-modified sugar) into U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack’s ear. Or something. In late January, the Secretary announced the USDA’s decision to completely deregulate genetically modified alfalfa, allowing it to be planted anywhere, without restriction. Just about a week later, […]
Posted inGoat
Tricking beetles and protecting whitebark pine – a video
Whitebark pine are an important forage species for grizzly bear, as we — and others — have written. They’re also a species that writers and nature lovers seem to specially connect with; our own Ed Marston and Earthjustice’s Doug Honnold have written odes to them in these pages. Writer and photographer David Gonzales has founded […]
Posted inRange
HCN reader photo – chariot racing!
This week’s stunning image comes from photographer Daryl Hunter. It’s from a horse-drawn chariot race (the horses pull a cutter) in Jackson, Wyo.
Posted inGoat
Sexual assault on the rez
Will the Obama administration’s efforts in Indian Country help end a decades-long epidemic of sexual violence and abuse against women on reservations? One can only hope that the momentum spurred by the Tribal Law and Order Act of 2010 and the work of a new Department of Justice task force to streamline prosecution of violent […]
Posted inArticles
High Country Views, A conversation with Michael Berman
In this episode of High Country Views, writer Pat Toomay sits down with acclaimed landscape photographer Michael Berman to talk about his craft and the draw of the desert. This podcast accompanies the story, “My walkabout with Michael,” and the slideshow, “Wilderness photographer.” Listen here! You can catch High Country Views approximately every […]
Posted inGoat
New Mexico governor sucker-punches enviro regs
On January 1, 2011, New Mexico’s new governor, Republican Susana Martinez, took office. Nine minutes into her first day, she got right down to business with executive order 2011-001 [PDF], the innocently-titled “Formation of a small business tax force,” which not only created said task force but, more importantly, placed a 90-day hold on most […]
Posted inRange
HCN reader photo – goats!
This week’s reader photo of foraging goats in Alpine, Wyoming, must have been a fun early Christmas present for photographer Daryl L. Hunter, who took it on Christmas Eve. Submit your photos to our Flickr pool; we post one a week.
Posted inGoat
Merry Christmas, small farmers and all eaters
The U.S. Congress gave the American public — and small farmers and ranchers — a bit more than a lump of E. coli-tainted coal this year. Their 2010 stocking stuffer is a freshly-passed food safety bill that gives the Food and Drug Administration additional powers to help keep our food supply safer. One important provision […]
Posted inDecember 20, 2010: California Dreamin'
State trust lands serve public
What’s equivalent in area to Washington state, lies mostly west of the Mississippi, and raises well over a billion dollars for public education each year? State trust lands. These unique “public” lands were granted by the federal government to every state that joined the Union, starting with Ohio in 1803, in the belief that townships […]
Posted inGoat
Would you like some DDT with that organic cucumber?
Consumers might assume that buying organic means the produce they purchase lacks chemical residues and the farmers and farm workers growing organic crops aren’t exposed to toxic chemicals. This may not always be the case. Organic farmers across the nation must contend with the possibility that the land they farm has some of the very […]
Posted inRange
HCN reader photo – New Mexico moon
This week’s reader photo is simple, still, and lovely. It comes from HCN Flickr community contributor Justin Morris. Add your photo to our Flickr group too!
Posted inDecember 6, 2010: Toxic Past, Toxic Present
All hopped up
Chinook, Magnum and American Fuggle — these are just some of the Pacific Northwest’s many organic hop varieties. But despite rapid growth in organic craft beer production, they’re hardly flying off the shelves. That’s because, until recently, USDA rules allowed organic brewers to use much cheaper conventional hops. In 2007, the National Organic Standards Board […]
Posted inRange
HCN reader photo – Desert cathedral
From HCN Flickr group contributor John Mumaw of Cortez, Colo., who writes: “The only cottonwood tree for miles around is nurtured and protected from a harsh environment by the cool, moist soil found in this unique, teardrop shaped sandstone alcove on the Utah/Arizona border. The hours I spent in here waiting for the light were […]
Posted inGoat
Fun with factory farms!
Mooooove over, Wisconsin. You’re quickly losing your dairy state cred to the West. Unfortunately for those of us who live beyond the 100th meridian, though, the usurped title of America’s Dairyland comes at a price. As factory-sized dairies colonize the West, they have significant effects on water and air quality, as well as quality of […]