When junk bonder Charles Hurwitz bought up Kaiser Aluminum and Pacific Lumber, then accelerated cutting of ancient California redwoods and locked out his employees, he didn’t know he was creating a new political movement. Yet outrage at Hurwitz’s tactics forged an unconventional alliance between labor and environmentalism. Just six months ago, locked-out United Steelworkers members […]
Books
Posted inMay 8, 2000: After the fall
Look at that big plant!
Some fertilizer sold in Washington state since 1996 contained uranium and other wastes from the production of nuclear reactor fuel; in fact, before the state’s Department of Agriculture issued a stop-sale order on Feb. 17, over 390,000 gallons of the material had been distributed. State health officials found out about the product after a Seattle […]
Posted inMay 8, 2000: After the fall
Logging doesn’t cut it
A sea of evergreens, uninterrupted by roads or clear-cut; an eroding mountainside, barren of everything but stumps and broken branches. Ancient Forests: The Power of Place, a 30-minute educational video, uses this contrast to paint a compelling picture of logging’s siege on Northwest forests. The video from Green Fire Productions, a nonprofit filmmaking organization, takes […]
Posted inMay 8, 2000: After the fall
A bear of a plan
Grizzly bears could be reintroduced to the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness Area in a little more than a year, if a final environmental impact statement proceeds as planned. The Fish and Wildlife Service’s preferred alternative of the grizzly plan calls for a citizen’s management committee to oversee reintroduction of a non-essential experimental grizzly bear population. The Interior […]
Posted inMay 8, 2000: After the fall
Telluride’s MountainFilm
If the past is guide, the 22nd MountainFilm in Telluride this May will be more than the sum of its parts. The individual elements will be impressive – a day-long opening symposium on the Andes and miles of celluloid about nature, other cultures, and jocks playing on rocks, glaciers and rivers. But the power of […]
Posted inMay 8, 2000: After the fall
We can do it ourselves
It was 1970, and people were dropping out in droves. Wood stoves were replacing electric heat, milk cartons were transforming wax into candles. Someone noted that more pottery was created during the ’70s than during the history of mankind – perhaps an exaggeration. One of the gurus for back-to-the-landers 30 years ago was a woman […]
Posted inMay 8, 2000: After the fall
Indian Country Today’s Pow Wow 2000
Celebrate the traditions of America’s native people with Indian Country Today’s Pow Wow 2000 guide, a comprehensive schedule of Native American pow wows across the nation. The guide includes the Gathering of Nations Pow Wow in Albuquerque, N.M., and National Indian Days in White Swan, Wash. Each listing includes contact number for more information. To […]
Posted inApril 24, 2000: At your service: Unions help some Western workers serve themselves
SUWA goes national
From redrock canyons to sagebrush prairies, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) administers 177 million acres in the lower 48 states. About 5 million acres – or 3 percent – are currently protected as wilderness. The National BLM Wilderness Campaign, a new project of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA), is lobbying the administration to […]
Posted inApril 24, 2000: At your service: Unions help some Western workers serve themselves
Tough but threatened
The ironwood tree, long a symbol of desert abundance, may soon be protected by a new national monument in southern Arizona. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt toured an ironwood forest near Tucson in mid-March, and expressed interest in protecting about 71,000 acres of BLM land. A recent report by the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum in Tucson says […]
Posted inApril 24, 2000: At your service: Unions help some Western workers serve themselves
Backpacks and quacks
Sporting highly sophisticated “backpacks’ that are really 20-gram satellite transmitters, 50 female pintail ducks are flying north from the Central Valley in California this spring. The ducks are the focus of Discovery for Recovery, a four-year study by Ducks Unlimited, the U.S. Geological Survey and the California Waterfowl Association. Its object is determining pintail migration […]
Posted inApril 24, 2000: At your service: Unions help some Western workers serve themselves
Ludlow Massacre memorialized
In 1914, near Trinidad, Colo., coal miners from the southern coal fields of Colorado tried to organize a union to improve working conditions, enforce the eight-hour work day, have the right to select their own boarding places, doctors and grocery stores, and decrease the high death toll of miners. Their struggle made history on April […]
Posted inApril 24, 2000: At your service: Unions help some Western workers serve themselves
Escalante Wilderness Action Gathering
Environmentalists wanting to hear and discuss everything from grazing on public lands to Glen Canyon restoration will convene at the Escalante Wilderness Action Gathering near Escalante, Utah, May 19-21. Camping and a $20 donation are encouraged for the outdoor event which includes community meals. Call Tori Woodard or Patrick Diehl for information and directions at […]
Posted inApril 24, 2000: At your service: Unions help some Western workers serve themselves
Management plan for the Yellowstone grizzly
The Fish and Wildlife Service released its management plan for the Yellowstone grizzly, a requirement before the bear is taken off the endangered species list. View the plan at www.r6.fws.gov/endspp or obtain a copy from local libraries in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho. Address comments to Grizzly Bear Recovery Coordinator, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, University […]
Posted inApril 24, 2000: At your service: Unions help some Western workers serve themselves
Water and Growth in the West
The University of Colorado School of Law’s summer conference, Water and Growth in the West in Boulder, Colo., June 7-9, will feature a barbecue on Flagstaff Mountain and case studies from around the region. Contact Natural Resources Law Center, University of Colorado School of Law, Campus Box 401, Boulder, CO 80309-0401, 303/492-1272, e-mail: NRLC@spot.colorado.edu, or […]
Posted inApril 24, 2000: At your service: Unions help some Western workers serve themselves
Biographical profiles of American envirommentalists
The editor of a reference book/CD ROM seeks contributors to write 700-1,400-word biographical profiles of American environmentalists. Contributors may choose their subjects from the editor’s list, and must be able to submit profiles via e-mail, and agree to make revisions. Pay is $50 per entry; write to (e-mail address removed by request). This article appeared […]
Posted inApril 24, 2000: At your service: Unions help some Western workers serve themselves
Then and Now, 1870-2000: The Jackson/Fielder Photos
An ongoing exhibit at the Colorado History Museum in Denver, Colo., Then and Now, 1870-2000: The Jackson/Fielder Photos, showcases the works of two renowned Western photographers through Aug. 6. John Fielder photographs the same landscapes William Henry Jackson first captured over a century ago. Admission is $3 for adults. Call 303/866-3682 for more information. This […]
Posted inApril 24, 2000: At your service: Unions help some Western workers serve themselves
An unruly river
In Rivers of Empire, historian Donald Worster argued that the West’s dams and irrigation systems and hydroelectric facilities were imposed on the region by an all-powerful water elite. The elite built a hydraulic empire, which thwarts democracy and subjects most of us to a peasant existence. Now comes historian Robert Kelley Schneiders with a different […]
Posted inApril 24, 2000: At your service: Unions help some Western workers serve themselves
A norteno champions a local environmental ethic
Many here in “New” Mexico have not forgotten that the United States violated the 150-year-old Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo by asserting ownership of community ejidos – common lands under the historic land-grant system. Today, those lands make up national forests and land managed by the Bureau of Land Management. In this contested landscape, environmentalists and […]
Posted inApril 10, 2000: Beyond the Revolution
Environmental Justice in Natural Resources
The Natural Resources Law Center at the University of Colorado in Boulder is sponsoring a two-day workshop, Environmental Justice in Natural Resources, beginning April 14 with a “Talking Circle” at the LODO Tattered Cover bookstore in Denver, Colo. Keynote speaker April 15 is Patricia Limerick from the Center of the American West. Call Kathryn Mutz, […]
Posted inApril 10, 2000: Beyond the Revolution
Earth Day 2000, April 22
Events and celebrations are taking place throughout the West for Earth Day 2000, April 22, including an All Species of the Earth Day in Santa Fe, N.M., a Jammin” for Salmon musical celebration in Bellingham, Wash., and a Grand Canyon Forest Festival in Flagstaff, Ariz. Visit www.earthday.net for the complete schedule, or call the Earth […]