This issue makes visible the communities who often go unseen and unheard. The feature looks at local activists in California who, without assistance from the government, have been doggedly trying to heal their communities from toxic dumps through education and community service. The issue also covers a new species facing extinction, dams in the West and enlivened efforts to drill near national monuments.

Magazine cover: August 7, 2017: Los Promotores

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Tough questions

At a superficial level, this story reveals the contradictions of people who claim to be sympathetic to both environmental preservation and Indigenous people living in traditional ways (“Death Threats,” HCN, 7/24/17). But a little deeper down, we face some real human dilemmas. Beyond “managing” wildlife populations and limiting hunting to sustainable levels, many people do…

by Robert Krantz

Tourism can’t replace oil

Replacing the economic benefits of oil production with trail tourism is a nice idea, but the economic reality is staggering (“Trail Blazing,” HCN, 6/26/17). The current Trans-Alaska Pipeline carrying rate is about 500,000 barrels per day. At about $43 per barrel, the value of that resource is $21.5 million. Per day. All year long. Until…

by Robert Krantz

Tourism is nothing new

Alaska’s economy isn’t in need of salvage (“Trail Blazing,” HCN, 6/26/17). There is already a multibillion dollar tourist economy in the state. There are glacier tours, whale-watching tours, dog-sledding tours, bear-watching tours and hiking tours, in addition to fishing and hunting tours. Alaska actually has too many tours. We are selling off our wilderness as…

by Carl Reese

Distributing trail use

The trail numbers seem off in your story “Trail Blazing” (HCN, 6/26/17). The American Hiking Society’s 2015 report listed 103,000 miles of trails in 1965 on federal and state land, and 236,000 miles in 2015, not 326,000. (Editor’s note: Craig is correct; we’ve updated our story.) The lack of numbers in between those two years…

by Craig Jones

Los promotores

En medio de los basureros tóxicos de California, los activistas trabajan solos.

by Ruxandra Guidi

No empathy

In the story “Death Threats” (HCN, 7/24/17), Jessica Lefevre, an attorney for the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission, says, “The NGOs we deal with are ideologically driven; this is what they do, they save stuff. The collateral damage to communities doesn’t factor into their thinking.” The same could be said for dozens of hard-line animal rights…

by Chase Gunnell