Western universities learn there is more to forestry than chainsaws
Communities
Environmental paradigm spurs collaborative research
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, The end of certainty, in a special issue about the West’s forestry schools. For many years, the federal government spent more money studying the breeding and production of corn than it did studying forests. Yale Forestry Professor John Gordon speculates this was related to […]
Two views of forest health at the University of Idaho
Are the forests sick or well?
‘Anything you say about a whole forest is wrong’
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, Two views of forest health at the University of Idaho, in a special issue about the West’s forestry schools. Art Partridge is walking through the tall firs of the Coeur d’Alene National Forest in northern Idaho. Pausing occasionally to keep tabs on his […]
Critics say an Idaho think tank could be more scholarly
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, Two views of forest health at the University of Idaho, in a special issue about the West’s forestry schools. Controversy comes with the territory in Jay O’Laughlin’s job. He directs the University of Idaho’s Policy Analysis Group, which is charged with explaining natural […]
Northern Arizona U. looks back, moves forward
Presettlement forests provide map for management
Reformation in the Vatican of sawlog forestry
History takes Oregon State for a ride
The ax falls at the University of Washington
Environmental institute is chopped; other programs cut
Silencing science at UW: one researcher’s story
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, The ax falls at the University of Washington, in a special issue about the West’s forestry schools. When the University of Washington offered aquatic biologist Steve Ralph a job in 1989 directing a major new stream-research program, he jumped at the chance. His […]
A new breed of academic at Colorado State
Note: this story is one of several feature articles in a special issue about the West’s forestry schools. Fort Collins, Colo.- At 6:38 a.m., Rick Knight is happily installed in his campus office, propelling himself about at high velocity on a chair with well-greased rollers. He drums out memos on his computer, organizes slides for […]
Sleepy St. George wakes up to hate crimes
Dave Hamilton and Claude Schneider were asleep on Sept. 23 when Utah’s St. George Fire Department called to say their bookstore was on fire. Somebody had doused the building with gasoline and lit a match, say St. George police. “This was a hate crime,” says Schneider. “Hamilton and I are gay, and there is no […]
That waving wheat is nothing but a clearcut
Virtually all of agriculture is an attempt to artificially prolong the first stage of succession. The grasses we have domesticated … grow quickly and concentrate energy on producing seed. They store carbohydrates in these seeds, precisely why we value them as food. From an ecological sense, then, agriculture is a sustained catastrophe. It is the […]
‘All of us feel we don’t have …’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Nevada’s ugly tug-of war. “All of us feel we don’t have the impact, the ability to make changes we had 20 years ago.” – Bonnie Whalen Bonnie Whalen is a computer supervisor who grew up on a ranch north of town and has worked […]
Looking for a quiet, old neighborhood?
If a proposal by Utah’s Trust Lands Administration goes through, state-owned lots containing Native American ruins will go on the block to provide money for public schools. One lot includes an Anasazi house structure probably dating to the time of Christ; another contains a Fremont culture dwelling dating back 1,000 years. State officials say they […]
From sawing logs to serving cappuccino?
One hundred and forty-two years ago, a timber company built a sawmill and the town to operate it, Port Gamble, across the Puget Sound from Seattle, Wash. This October, the nation’s oldest continually operating sawmill is closing. The company, Pope & Talbot, that built the mill and now leases it from Pope Resources Co., says […]
Public lands for needy ski resorts
In Summit County, Colo., where housing prices force ski area service workers into trailer parks and long commutes (HCN, 4/17/95), a national forest supervisor has proposed a solution. He is Sonny LaSalle, who says the Forest Service could offer some of its public land to ski areas or other local businesses to build low-cost rental […]
Inventing the Southwest
INVENTING THE SOUTHWEST Few people realize that a restaurant and hotel chain played a key role in marketing Indian art as early as the 1880s. An exhibit to run through April 1997, at the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Ariz., explores how the Fred Harvey Company influenced the art of the Southwest’s Indians and shaped tourism […]
Rocks, invective, and generosity
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Did Idaho libel the feds? SALMON, Idaho – Until a wolf was shot on Gene Hussey’s ranch south of Salmon in January, he was just “Hussey,” a prankster with a sharp tongue who lived without a phone. Since the wolf’s killing and Hussey’s confrontation […]
Inside the glitter
In the past, photographers wanting to document Nevada’s workers headed for the mines, forests, ranches and irrigated farmlands. But no more, according to photojournalist Kit Miller. Today’s workforce can be found in the state’s casinos. Miller, a Nevada native, says she took on the project of interviewing and photographing this new Nevada workforce to confront […]
DIA hears from some critics
Because of a late plane coming from Denver International Airport, a standing-room-only crowd of 150 waited nearly two hours at an air summit meeting in Grand Junction, Colo., for DIA officials to show. Once over the Rockies, DIA reps heard a list of woes from regional airport managers: sky-high fares, unreliable service and bumped ticket-holders […]
