A group of landowners on the Colorado-New Mexico border aim to conserve a contested landscape.
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Rants from the Hill: A Christmas tree grows in the Nevada desert
The pinyon offers an alternative to artificial or commercially farmed trees.
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Court will hear case against data trespass laws
A federal judge rejected the state of Wyoming’s attempt to dismiss the lawsuit.
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The obscure music where wild animals sing from the heart
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 […]
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Which stories held your attention this year?
From the Animas to Washington wildfire, here are the stories that our readers spent most time on in 2015.
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In Idaho, rancher buyouts take a big step forward
Idaho’s White Cloud Mountains seem like an unlikely place for the beginning of a positive shift in public-land management. They gleam high and cold above the seemingly endless sagebrush plains of southern Idaho, one of the most conservative states in the West. Yet it was here last year that Republicans worked with environmentalists to plant […]
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Ranch Diaries: Year in review at Triangle P
Coconut the elk, Clem the colt and big dreams for next year.
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Economic diplomacy in Sagebrush Rebel country
A new science and education center gives rural Utah a boost.
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5 things I learned about managing my money from covering the oil bust
A reporter relays tips from her time in the field.
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12 stories from the archives you should read now
A look at our writers’ favorite stories of all time, as our 45th anniversary draws to a close.
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Budget bill would lift ban on crude exports and incentivize renewables
Months of bickering results in $1.1 trillion package to fund most of what the federal government does.
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Locavores aren’t loved by everybody
In the last 20 years, the amount of locally grown foods consumed in the American diet has tripled, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and it now comprises 2 percent of the food consumed in the country. As with anything that’s popular, some have seen fit to attack this trend. Why do they do […]
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Slow-motion methane disaster
Aliso Canyon has leaked more greenhouse gases in two months than a coal mine does in a year.
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Is the West prepared for climate change?
A new report shows most states are vulnerable to future increases in extreme heat, drought, and flooding.
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Five new studies that change our understanding of permafrost
Why they matter, even if you don’t live in the Arctic.
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Ranch Diaries: Building human connections from a remote ranch
Passing on knowledge is crucial to our way of life.
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Big Ag stands on shifting ground
Between 2006 and 2011, farmers on the western edge of the Midwest’s farm belt in Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota and the Dakotas converted more than 1.3 million acres of grasslands to corn and soybean fields. Some people were seriously alarmed. Wildlife habitat was destroyed, and water, soil and the air itself suffered. But that conversion of […]
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COP21: Let us celebrate the lack of total failure
The Paris agreement won’t end climate change. But it’s a long awaited step forward.
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Fishers recolonize Washington, part of a Northwest rewilding
The forest carnivore’s return was helped by human intervention.
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Early season snowpack falls short across the West
Nevada and Idaho are the only Western states above their historic averages.