A PLACE OF ONE’S OWN Are you thinking of buying a few acres of land to satisfy that pastoral desire? It may be more complicated than you think and not as much fun. That’s why Montana has published a brief booklet for small-acreage landowners called Tips on Land & Water Management for Small Farms and […]
Books
Posted inMay 1, 1995: Land grants under the microscope
Conspiracy of optimism
Conspiracy of Optimism Until World War II, private forests provided 95 percent of the nation’s wood products; from 1945 to 1960, the timber industry turned away from its overcut land to publicly owned trees on the national forests. Confident in their talents and technology, Forest Service managers embraced clearcutting over selective harvesting and built 65,000 […]
Posted inMay 1, 1995: Land grants under the microscope
Grassroots unite
GRASSROOTS UNITE Activists concerned about health, justice, peace and the environment will share organizing tactics May 5-6 in Missoula, Mont. Bryony Schwan, director of the Missoula-based Women’s Voices for the Earth, says the conference aims to diversify the environmental movement and pinpoint common ground among the participants. Speakers include Love Canal activist Lois Gibbs, now […]
Posted inApril 17, 1995: The New West's servant economy
The people problem
THE PEOPLE PROBLEM Is bigger better? The effects of population growth on the people of Utah and the state’s environment will be discussed at a conference in Salt Lake City, April 29. Keynote speaker Judith Jacobsen, a consultant to the President’s Council on Sustainable Development, will talk about the international conference on population held in […]
Posted inApril 17, 1995: The New West's servant economy
Endangered act on tour
Endangered act on tour Members of the House Committee on (Natural) Resources, chaired by Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, will be in Vancouver, Wash., April 24 to discuss the reauthorization of the Endangered Species Act. Panels organized by Republicans will feature working people who have had their livelihoods affected by the law, says staffer Steve Hansen, […]
Posted inApril 17, 1995: The New West's servant economy
Washington and the West
Washington and the West Ed Marston, High Country News publisher, and Guy Martin, former assistant secretary for Land and Water with the U.S. Interior Department, will discuss what Washington’s changing guard means for an also-changing West. “The New Congress and the New West,” set for Boulder, Colo., April 26, is one of the forums on […]
Posted inApril 17, 1995: The New West's servant economy
Outdoor museum preserved for now
OUTDOOR MUSEUM PRESERVED FOR NOW Two geologists working for the Bureau of Land Management in Boise, Idaho, began documenting a treasure trove four years ago: the carved bedrock of the Big Wood River, some 12 miles north of Shoshone. Terry Maley and Peter Oberlindacher were fascinated by the complex shapes that turbulent water, beginning some […]
Posted inApril 17, 1995: The New West's servant economy
How does a boom feel?
How does a boom feel? Everyone who lives in the West is a transplant or has felt the impact of migration; few places have not experienced the region’s booms and busts. What makes urbanites pull up stakes, and how is the latest influx affecting Western land and communities? Academics such as geography professor Bill Riebsame […]
Posted inApril 17, 1995: The New West's servant economy
Restoring the Truckee River
Restoring the Truckee River The Truckee River has been unraveling from its headwaters at Lake Tahoe to its terminus in Pyramid Lake. But now people along its course through California and Nevada are trying to figure out ways to braid the river back to health. A Truckee River Conference, April 27-29 in Reno, will bring […]
Posted inApril 17, 1995: The New West's servant economy
Blueprint for salmon survival
Blueprint for SALMON survival The new recovery plan to bring back endangered Columbia and Snake river salmon hits all “four H’s’ – hydropower dams, habitat degradation, hatcheries and harvest by fishing – but critics charge it’s still too soft on dams. The 500-page federal plan, required by the Endangered Species Act and announced by the […]
Posted inApril 17, 1995: The New West's servant economy
Land grant says wilderness hurts
Land grant says Wilderness hurts A new study by Utah State University, a land-grant institution, concludes that federally designated wilderness could harm rural economies. The study, which features a picture of a paved road running through southern Utah on its cover, drew immediate praise from anti-wilderness groups. “This study validates what the counties in Utah […]
Posted inApril 3, 1995: The Great Basin: America's wasteland seeks a new identity
BLM accepts eco-challenge
BLM accepts Eco-Challenge While being videotaped from a helicopter, 50 teams of five competitors each will race through the heart of southern Utah’s canyon country this April. Although 85 percent to 90 percent of the 700 comments received opposed the scheme, the Bureau of Land Management recently gave its approval, with conditions, to the Eco-Challenge […]
Posted inApril 3, 1995: The Great Basin: America's wasteland seeks a new identity
Writing after Thoreau
WRITING AFTER THOREAU “In the Thoreau Tradition III” brings together writers William Kittredge, Terry Tempest Williams and Linda Hogan in Missoula, Mont., May 4-7. They’ll join 11 others to talk about the nature of the American West and cross-cultural humor, among other topics. Sponsors include Hellgate Writers, the University of Montana, and the Center for […]
Posted inApril 3, 1995: The Great Basin: America's wasteland seeks a new identity
Doctoring the land
Doctoring the land A public forum, “Paradigms in Transition: Natural Resources Management in the New Century,” April 11 at Colorado State University will take a multi-disciplinary look at how we manage – and mismanage – natural resources. “We need to educate land stewards like doctors,” says forum coordinator Rick Knight. “They need to be able […]
Posted inApril 3, 1995: The Great Basin: America's wasteland seeks a new identity
Fragmented ecosystems workshop
Doctoring the land A public forum, “Paradigms in Transition: Natural Resources Management in the New Century,” April 11 at Colorado State University will take a multi-disciplinary look at how we manage – and mismanage – natural resources. “We need to educate land stewards like doctors,” says forum coordinator Rick Knight. “They need to be able […]
Posted inApril 3, 1995: The Great Basin: America's wasteland seeks a new identity
Are the feds land-grabbers?
Are the feds land-grabbers? According to a federal report, agencies such as the Forest Service, BLM and National Park Service manage 34 million acres more today than than they did in 1964. But that’s only if you exclude Alaska, where 112 million acres left federal control due to statehood land promises and treaties with native […]
Posted inApril 3, 1995: The Great Basin: America's wasteland seeks a new identity
Little town blues
Little town blues Does anything good come out of rapid growth? The trend toward urbanization of the rural West is the theme of “Community Values, Change, Growth and Quality of Life,” a May 10 symposium in western Colorado’s Glenwood Springs. Speakers include Daniel Kemmis, mayor of Missoula, Raye Ringholz, author of Little Town Blues – […]
Posted inApril 3, 1995: The Great Basin: America's wasteland seeks a new identity
Love your grandmother
Love your Grandmother A grassroots group called Grandmother’s Friends wants help in barring chainsaws from a roadless area called Grandmother Mountain in northern Idaho’s panhandle. A proposed timber sale would cut 7.8 million board-feet out of the wilderness 50 miles northwest of Moscow. “The area contains some very scenic and diverse habitats that wildlife depend […]
Posted inApril 3, 1995: The Great Basin: America's wasteland seeks a new identity
In their footprints
In their footprints When they mysteriously disappeared from the Southwest some 700 years ago, Anasazi Indians left behind intricate ruins and painted or pecked designs on rock as powerful testimony to their civilization. The desert also preserved a more fragile reminder – sandals woven from yucca leaves, in which the footprints of the wearers are […]
Posted inMarch 20, 1995: The fight for Reclamation
How to nominate an environmental innovator
Hoping to galvanize the environmental movement in the United States, one of the biggest philanthropic organizations in the world began five years ago to give money directly to the country’s best and brightest conservationists. It’s the Pew Charitable Trust’s Pew Scholars Program, which so far has doled out 50 grants of $150,000 to people from […]