Not long ago, Pacific salmon geographies of harvest, consumption, and reproduction were conterminous. Forten millennia, where fish spawned was also where they were caught and eaten, but in the last two centuries industrial fishing techniques launched harvestersdownstream and out to sea, while salting, canning, and freezing technologies expanded consumption across time and space. We now […]
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HCN Reader Photo: Boots
I had to post this reader photo, from Flickr member ben j. It’s a great shot! He took it in Boulder, Utah. Add your photos to the HCN Community Flickr pool; we feature selected photos from the group from time to time on this blog. You can also enter HCN’s many 40th anniversary photo contests […]
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Wolf case highlights need for collaboration
Sometimes no news is good news, so I’ll count last week’s relatively uneventful oral arguments as a boon for continued wolf recovery efforts in the northern Rockies. But the mood both inside and outside the U.S. district courthouse in Missoula shows there’s still much work to be done to ensure sustainable wolf management in the […]
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A new chapter in Klamath River Water Wars
Two years ago High Country News’ cover boldly proclaimed Peace on the Klamath. The reference was to the Klamath River, where a collection of federal and state agencies, irrigators, fishing organizations and environmental groups had announced an agreement which the article claimed would end the river’s water wars and result in a future characterized by […]
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Joshua Tree instructs students about climate change
When Joshua Tree National Park Ranger Caryn Davidson announced, “We cannot do much to change the course of climate change,” 30 students moved to the corner of the Black Rock Visitor’s Center under a large paper sign with the words “strongly disagree” written in black magic marker. “Mankind has the intelligence to destroy the world […]
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Do you need to see a doctor? Queue up.
Part one in a two-part series “I need to see a doctor.” These six words have been written into our programming as modern humans. We wait in line at the clinic. We make an appointment. We know instinctively that this is the one person to see who can check out our health, fix us up […]
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Colin Peterson, the 2012 Farm Bill and the environment
Lead by Chairman Colin Peterson of Minnesota, the House of Representatives Agriculture Committee held hearings and took testimony in April and May in preparation for a new Farm Bill. Peterson would like to pass a new version of the bill in 2012. The process began with a hearing in DC on April 21st which I […]
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The 2012 Farm Bill dance has a sad history
Last week the Agricultural Committee of the US House of Representatives began work on the 2012 Farm Bill with a kick-off hearing. I happened to be in DC at the time and I stood in line with lobbyists for farm groups waiting to get a good seat in the wood paneled hearing room. I was […]
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HCN Reader Photo: Western Sandpipers
Given all the sad news and images out of the Gulf lately, particularly of oil-covered fauna like birds, I thought I’d highlight this reader-submitted photo of two happy and healthy Western sandpipers – as a reminder that there are still some things right with the world. This photograph is from Flickr member SigmaEye, a regular […]
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Archives and legal precedents
Within the Currents offerings in the April 26th edition Matt Jenkins provide readers with a description (for subscribers only) of one of the West’s most important archives – The Water Resources Center Archive at the University of California in Berkeley. Matt tells us that historian Donald Worster was among those who did research at the […]
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HCN Reader Photo: Prisoner plantings
This week’s reader photo is another photo contest submission. It shows the hands of inmates propogating plants to be used in restoration projects in Washington State. Check out this photo and many others at our contest site, and enter your photos of Western people into the contest before the deadline – May 9.
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Measuring progress in Native health
Consider this from a White House memo: “While there have been improvements in health status of Indians in the past 15 years, a loss of momentum can further slow the already sluggish rate of approach to parity. Increased momentum in health delivery and sanitation as insured by this bill speed the rate of closing the […]
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Meditational rant on the word “pristine”
This morning my local radio station aired an ad which referred to the natural environments of California’s North Coast. It was for an outdoor store; listeners were encouraged to enjoy our regions river, beaches and pristine mountain tops. This really gets my goat. I’ve been on most of those mountain tops over the past 35 […]
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The 2012 Farm Bill dance begins in DC
Last week the Agricultural Committee of the US House of Representatives began work on the 2012 Farm Bill with a kick-off hearing. I happened to be in DC at the time and I stood in line with lobbyists for farm groups waiting to get a good seat in the wood paneled hearing room. I was […]
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New West, New Dust Bowl?
By Courtney White. Originally posted on NewWest.net, 4-28-2010 The apparent declining interest in the environment among Americans was much on my mind as I attended the 21st Annual Southern Plains conference in Lubbock, Texas, recently. Organized by the nonprofit Ogallala Commons, the event focused on a famous date in environmental history. No, it wasn’t the […]
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HCN Reader Photo: Wrangler and Little Cowboy
This week’s featured reader photo is one of the entries to our current photo contest, The People of the West. You can enter your photos that capture the West’s people to this contest until May 9, 2010. Check out our contests page for more information on this and other writing and photography contests celebrating HCN’s […]
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Listing the wolverine
On a sunny day in late March 2010, a young wolverine known as F3 poked her head out of the mouth of a log-box research trap in Montana’s Absaroka Range, looked around, and then, in a blur of snow, surged off into the wilderness. Around her neck was a new GPS collar that we’d fastened […]
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HCN Reader Photo: Teton Summer
We might be a little premature in posting this photo, in April, since it represents the Tetons in August. But it’s such a lovely picture, and gives us something to look forward to: long summer days with beautiful views. It’s great to live in the West. Add your photos to our Flickr pool; we pick […]
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Waste not … or get nukes
A few weeks ago the New Mexico Environmental Law Center’s media director, Juana Colon, suggested I should write a blog post about policymakers’ recent embrace of nuclear power as just a way to enrich the world’s economic elites while at the same time continuing to subject poor and minority communities to various kinds of radioactive […]
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Hey forest lovers – time to make your voices heard!
Today, Coloradans have a chance today to shape the future of America’s National System of Forests, some 193 million acres of mountains, grasslands, rivers and lakes all across the country. The U.S. Forest Service is hosting more than 30 national town hall meetings to hear, straight from the people who use these lands, why our […]