The era of the Indian land treaty ended more than a century ago, but now the West is in the midst of another treaty era – this time focused on water. So writes Daniel McCool, a longtime scholar of federal Indian policy and the head of the University of Utah’s American West Center, in his […]
Books
Posted inOctober 14, 2002: Democrats kick back: The politics of growth
Have you ever seen the cranes?
The Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge straddles the Rio Grande south of Socorro, N.M., and serves as the wintering grounds for thousands of sandhill cranes and snow geese. Witness this rare spectacle at the 15th annual Festival of the Cranes, a six-day event organized by the Friends of the Bosque del Apache that coincides […]
Posted inSeptember 30, 2002: Delta Blues
A new planning tool takes flight
Have you ever endured an incredibly boring planning meeting at Town Hall? Some developer, standing before a blizzard of maps and charts, drones on about how his subdivision will fit seamlessly into your community. You know that the size and location of the project will forever mar the incredible view over the river to the […]
Posted inSeptember 30, 2002: Delta Blues
A dry old time
The Dry Cimarron River is called “dry” because it has a tendency to sink, then rise again, as it flows from Johnson Mesa in northeastern New Mexico, through a deep canyon, across a corner of Oklahoma and into the Arkansas River near Dodge City, Kan. Along the way, the Dry Cimarron nourishes rangeland that has […]
Posted inSeptember 30, 2002: Delta Blues
A flood of admirers
The Clark Fork River in Montana suffers from more than a century of extraction, but there’s no shortage of praise for the resilience and enduring beauty of the river and its tributaries. Just as the river runs over boulders, drops through cascades, and meanders through its floodplain, the collection of works in The River We […]
Posted inSeptember 30, 2002: Delta Blues
Magical, mystical and down-to-earth
They’ve been coined “boineers” – for biological pioneers – and they look to nature for models of sustainability and ecological and social restoration. This translates into topics as varied as transforming toxins using natural shamanic rituals to exploring the role of marine ecosystems. Now, you can see what these cutting-edge scientists, artists and activists have […]
Posted inSeptember 16, 2002: The Royal Squeeze
Yes, I’m gonna eat that!
After visiting the Fertile Crescent, where he eats “local” food for the first time, Lebanese-American writer Gary Paul Nabhan returns to the U.S. determined to do the same at his Tucson home. To most of us, that would have meant growing a larger garden and buying a lamb or cow from a neighbor. But Nabhan, […]
Posted inSeptember 16, 2002: The Royal Squeeze
Learn about everything
Learn about everything from fueling your car with vegetable oil to how Aspen, Colo., manages its “alternative building” at the Fourth Annual Sustainable Communities Symposium, Sept. 20-22 in Crested Butte, Colo. The conference kicks off with words from Janine Benyus, author of Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature (HCN, 7/6/98:Defining a scientific movement), and features workshops […]
Posted inSeptember 16, 2002: The Royal Squeeze
Island Hoping
Island hoping In Arizona and New Mexico, a unique complex of 27 mountain ranges encompasses vast stretches of desert scrub, grasslands and oak woodlands, and is home to more than 75 species of reptiles. Called the Sky Islands (HCN, 4/26/99:Can science heal the land?), the landscape inspired Aldo Leopold to write that ” … these […]
Posted inSeptember 2, 2002: Backlash
If you’re tired …
If you’re tired of gloomy environmental books, visit the Sopris Foundation’s Web site for its handbook, A Call to Action. Jammed into 32 entertaining pages is everything from Grist Magazine’s “Energy saving tips for the very lazy,” to energy expert Randy Udall’s cerebral link between a Joni Mitchell song and his thoughts on carbon dioxide. […]
Posted inSeptember 2, 2002: Backlash
Visit awhile with Molly …
Visit awhile with Molly Ivins, sharp-tongued Texas columnist, on Sept. 21 at the Western Colorado Congress meeting in Grand Junction, Colo. Inspired by her book, You Got to Dance with Them What Brung You, her discussion will examine – with, inevitably, great sarcastic delivery – how campaign finance distorts the political process. Call the WCC […]
Posted inSeptember 2, 2002: Backlash
An inspiring, devastating story
The Navajo grassroots environmental group Dine CARE has worked to protect forests, water and human health on the Navajo reservation for more than a decade (HCN, 10/31/94:’People of the Earth’ stress “natural laws’). When group founders Leroy Jackson and Adella Begaye first started fighting irresponsible logging on the reservation, they thought the battle would take […]
Posted inSeptember 2, 2002: Backlash
River’s end
The numbers are impressive: 25 million people depend on the Colorado River, which falls 14,000 feet in its 1,700-mile journey, and is home to 20 power plants, 10 major dams and 80 diversion channels. Over the past year, the humanities councils of seven Western states have worked together on Moving Waters: The Colorado River and […]
Posted inSeptember 2, 2002: Backlash
Telling it on the mountain
The mountains, for many of us, are a source of inspiration, adventure, work and play. But for a lot of the world, mountain life means extreme poverty and a rapidly declining quality of life. A disproportionately high number of the world’s hungry and chronically malnourished people live in mountain regions. The United Nations has declared […]
Posted inSeptember 2, 2002: Backlash
No shoes, no problem
With bats in the attic, skunks and marmots under the floor, deer mice in the corners and cluster flies throughout the house, Kathleen Meyer may want to sleep on the deck, but at least she no longer has to shit in the woods. In Barefoot Hearted: A Wild Life Among Wildlife, Meyer, author of the […]
Posted inSeptember 2, 2002: Backlash
The fission of a New Mexican nuclear family
In this richly layered novel, author Bradford Morrow peels back the geography of New Mexico to reveal its unforgiving core of rock and scree. The Land of Enchantment is also a landscape haunted by nuclear testing during the 1950s, and it is within this rough physical and emotional terrain that Morrow sets his tale about […]
Posted inSeptember 2, 2002: Backlash
Is it possible …
It is possible for a ranch to maintain a healthy ecosystem during a drought – and stay in business? Ranch expert Kirk Gadzia is leading an Outdoor Classroom on Rangleland Health at Jim and Joy Williams’ ranch near Quemando, N.M., Sept. 14-15. Gadzia, co-author of the National Academy of Sciences book Rangeland Health, believes watershed […]
Posted inAugust 5, 2002: Land or money?
A kick in the grass for restoration
Looking back on the disastrous wildfires of 1999 and facing a devastating future in the Great Basin, the Bureau of Land Management saw an opportunity to try a holistic restoration effort that would break the cheatgrass-induced fire cycle (HCN, 5/22/00: Save Our Sagebrush). This landscape-sized idea spawned the Eastern Nevada Landscape Coalition, a nonprofit partnership […]
Posted inAugust 5, 2002: Land or money?
Utah gases up
Major oil and gas development is one step closer to fruition on 2 million acres of public land in northeastern Utah. Geophysical surveying company Veritas DGC Inc. recently submitted a draft environmental assessment, proposing two-dimensional seismic exploration in the Book Cliffs area. Instead of using behemoth thumper trucks, Veritas plans to detonate 7,500 underground explosives […]
Posted inAugust 5, 2002: Land or money?
When good tax-evaders go bad
Back in the halcyon days of the Northwest militia movement in the mid-’90s, a curious breed of man emerged from the moist backwoods and unemployment lines of the disenfranchised West: the wannabe Patriot. In Whatcom County, Wash., the commander in chief of the Washington State Militia, John Pitner, was experiencing New World Order visions. The […]