Despite recreation pressures, a Colorado community comes together to preserve the wildness of the place they live in.
Communities
Record rainfall, bears and French toast at Anchorage’s new city-sanctioned homeless encampment
A network of mutual aid organizers provides meals and supplies for people experiencing homelessness.
Botanists find one of ‘the world’s worst weeds’ spreading in the Boise foothills
Cogongrass is the latest of a fast-growing number of invasive plants threatening Idaho’s fire-prone rangelands.
Collaborations with nature
A new ‘school’ of art and geography gathers artists for creative fieldwork in the Sonoran Desert.
How to rebuild in a time of endless fire
Okanogan County, Washington, had hardly recovered from the last devastating wildfire when the next one struck.
See the LA River at a fragile crossroads
Photographer Pablo Unzueta explores an urban river at peril and in constant flux.
Protecting neighborhoods from future flames
Equitable wildfire preparedness requires community-level fixes.
‘We are not for sale’
The Environmental Justice for All Act could give communities more agency to stop mega warehouse projects.
Washington’s largest homeless encampment faces an uncertain future
With the state planning to spend $24 million on relocation, residents of Camp Hope aspire to self determination and continued community.
Can Arizona citizens use the tools of democracy to preserve the state’s dwindling water?
How a group of ‘scrappy’ locals are working to create Arizona’s first citizen-initiated groundwater management area.
Out-of-this-world fest; territorial disputes; bear-family affairs
Mishaps and mayhem from around the region.
When I knew I had made it home
I drifted around the rural West and country for decades. Until I reached a small corner of Colorado.
Alaska land sale kicks off the state’s ambitious new agricultural project
The Nenana Totchaket Agricultural Project aims to fight food insecurity in the state but could interfere with local trappers’ ability to gather food.
How growing Western rec towns might hold onto their futures
Researchers look to give small tourism communities the tools for a GNARly approach.
Why can’t the public access the West’s biggest waterfall?
Willamette Falls used to be a public place of laughter and sharing. It could be again, if painful politics don’t eclipse revitalization efforts.
A community poisoned by oil
People living in Wilmington, California, experience higher levels of illness and ailing mental health.
Raquel Gutiérrez feels shades of desperate
The author of ‘Brown Neon’ on queer fatherhood and being broke down in the desert.
Worrying about the dust next door in this Montana mining town
Residents of a Butte neighborhood are concerned about what’s wafting from a nearby open-pit mine that can coat their homes and vehicles.
Reconsidering Wilma Mankiller
As the Cherokee Nation’s first female chief’s image is minted onto a coin, her full humanity should be examined.
How cooking, eating and harvesting beach greens ties a family together
An Inupiaq writer remembers her family roots through a favorite dish.
