Posted inNovember 13, 1995: Seeing the forest and the trees

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 […]

Posted inNovember 13, 1995: Seeing the forest and the trees

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 […]

Posted inNovember 13, 1995: Seeing the forest and the trees

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 […]

Posted inOctober 30, 1995: Nevada's ugly tug-of war

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 […]

Posted inOctober 16, 1995: In the heart of the New West, the sheep win one

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 […]

Posted inSeptember 18, 1995: The West's fisheries spin out of control

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 […]

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