I was raised to believe that you should leave places better than you found them. Pick up trash, plant flowers, repair something broken, leave a few pieces of firewood at a campsite for the next folks. Practice “leave no trace” in the backcountry, so that others can have the same exhilarating experience you did without having to stumble on a disconcerting wad of toilet paper at the base of an unsuspecting shrub. Some hikers will even turn a Ziploc bag inside out and retrieve those repulsive wads. My dad would always finish a hike with a pocket full of other people’s cigarette butts.
If everybody behaved like this, it would be a better world. But if everybody does the opposite — takes more than they give, compromises the integrity of places with no thought for others — then our world is destined to become increasingly despoiled. As has been the case (see: Superfund sites, the 6th mass extinction, 420 parts per million CO2 in the atmosphere). In today’s dominant culture, it seems the takers outnumber the givers. This means the givers have to work extra hard to slow the unraveling of our communities and the ecosystems we all depend on.
In this first issue of High Country News of 2025, you’ll read about a cannabis operation on the Fort McDermitt Reservation that went bust, leaving behind defunct greenhouses, abandoned facilities and a pittance of the anticipated profits. The non-Native entrepreneurs responsible for the debacle left the tribe to pick up the pieces. Elsewhere in this issue, Nina McConigley charts a course for the year ahead, deciding that this will be the year she doubles down on working to make things better in her community in order to counter the despair she feels about an incoming presidential administration that is set on dialing back environmental protections and increasing intimidation, fear and hate of immigrants.
Ultimately, it’s up to each of us to decide which side of the balance our efforts will fall on. Have we given back? Have we volunteered, planted, honored, protected, donated, cared for, safeguarded, stewarded and restored more than we destroyed, denuded, consumed, abandoned or passively disregarded? The beginning of a new year is an excellent time to take stock, make a course correction or decide to double down in the year ahead. If we all leave the place better than we found it, it will be a more beautiful world.
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