Before he leaves office, President Barack Obama has the chance to significantly alter the landscape of Utah by using his ace in the hole, the Antiquities Act, which was signed into law in 1906 by my hero ¾ Republican President Theodore Roosevelt. He could set aside thousands of acres in southern Utah as a new […]
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Huge new ‘communities’ planned for Tucson, Albuquerque
Sprawl rises from its slumber, but urban renaissance is still thriving.
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Should oil pipelines be better regulated instead of flat out opposed?
Conversation with an author of a new book on pipeline rust, regulation and safety.
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A Latino sportsman talks with the BLM’s Utah director
Juan Palma discusses states’ rights, landscape-scale planning and how personal history affects public decisions.
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How an international trade deal will impact Western states
The Trans-Pacific Partnership could mean more beef imports and natural gas exports.
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Navajo election shakes up Grand Canyon development plans
How will the tribe’s new president handle the controversial Escalade project?
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Author Craig Childs talks about his ‘barbaric’ children with KDNK
In the Alaska backwoods, Childs tested the boundaries of the belief that kids should play in the wilderness.
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Searching for the best dog to save livestock — and wildlife
Can the right breed keep both domestic animals and native carnivores alive?
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Oath Keepers show up for a public lands dispute in Oregon
Plus a Cliven Bundy supporter is charged and BLM emails about the Nevada standoff were released.
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How to galvanize a classroom
Recently I devoured a short book of nonfiction with a very odd title: The Committee for the Reburial of Liver-Eating Johnston: Memoirs of a Dyslexic Teacher, by Tri Robinson. It’s a memoir, and it revolves around a teacher, his highly motivated seventh-graders, and the remains of a long-dead “Mountain Man.” That man is John “Liver-Eating” […]
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Feds opt not to list Mono Basin sage grouse
Conservation efforts persuaded officials that the Nevada-California population will fare well.
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Ghost subdivisions haunt the New West
On a gusty and overcast, chilly afternoon, the writer Samuel Western and I decide to tour a housing development in Wyoming called the B.B. Brooks Ranch. It’s a 41,000-acre subdivision with hundreds of available lots – most of them 40 acres in size – in a lattice of largely ungraded dirt roads. Platted lots are […]
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Interior considers hike in oil and gas royalty rates
Industry opposes reforms at a time when low oil prices deter drilling.
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Ranch Diaries: Building community in the middle of nowhere
Cattle branding brings together far-flung neighbors in the midst of the “Big Quiet.”
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On a methane mystery tour in the Four Corners region
Scientists, planes and instruments descend on San Juan Basin to find roots of the massive greenhouse gas hotspot.
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Idaho’s Panther Creek comes back from the dead
Two decades after restoration began, life returns to a stream sterilized by mining.
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Political sparring over the Land and Water Conservation Fund
A Wyoming canyon is the focal point of the dispute over the program’s future.
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Washington’s Swinomish sue to halt Bakken oil trains
Many communities fight transport of crude oil through their towns; some find legal footing to succeed.
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Famous Los Angeles puma holes up in residents’ crawlspace
The mountain lion brings attention to the role of urban wilds.
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Utah’s ‘Grand Bargain’ for public lands enters phase three
Bishop pushes what may be the West’s biggest reshuffle of the land checkerboard.