If you think the word “slut” insults women, how about the use of the word “virgin” to describe a forest that’s never been logged? It’s a commonly used term. Dictionary.com, for instance, defines “virgin forest” this way: “a forest in its natural state, before it has been explored or exploited by man.” Still, I was […]
Forests
Posted inOctober 27, 2008: Prophets and politics
Living with trees
Between Earth and Sky: Our Intimate Connections to TreesNalini M. Nadkarni336 pages, hardcover: $24.95.University of California, 2008. Between Earth and Sky sets out to describe the many ways in which trees sustain us. When author Nalini Nadkarni was a girl in suburban Maryland, after school she would climb one of the eight maples in her […]
Posted inOctober 2, 2006: From the ground up
Stirring the pot
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, “From the ground up.” The paper: The North Coast Journal, published weekly in Arcata, Calif., for almost 18 years, features in-depth journalism with a strong arts and entertainment section. The local media scene: Two dailies, one printed in Humboldt County for many […]
Posted inOctober 2, 2006: From the ground up
Film: Lens of compassion
Note: This article is one of several feature stories in a special issue about community media in the West. Philomath, Ore., nestled on the Coast Range’s eastern flanks, looks like an average logging town. On a Saturday afternoon, kids pushing BMX bikes scamper across the main street. American flags hang limp in the late summer […]
Posted inWotr
Fire and the warming West
An Associated Press story that ran recently above the page one fold in Billings and Butte, Mont., didn’t qualify even as a brief in Baltimore, Md. No surprise, there. More people live in public housing in Baltimore than populate the states of North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming, combined. But it was big news on the […]
Posted inWotr
Montana Sen. Conrad Burns spotlights a bad burn policy
Conrad Burns, the third-term Republican senator from Montana, may have done Westerners a backhanded favor when he cornered firefighters in the Billings airport and berated them for the job they did on an eastern Montana wildfire. Burns reportedly confronted members of the Augusta Hotshots last month as they were waiting for their flight back home […]
Posted inAugust 7, 2006: Is It or Isn't It (Just Another Mouse)?
Where there’s fire, there’s global warming
“I think there was a tendency to think that the overwhelming factor (driving forest fires) was short-term weather. There’s this idea that drought matters, and it does. But it’s taking time and a lot of research to show that climate plays a big role as well.” — Anthony Westerling Six years ago, climate scientist Anthony […]
Posted inJune 12, 2006: The Perpetual Growth Machine
Tribes look to cash in with ‘tree-market’ environmentalism
Carbon banking could help restore forests and fight global warming
Posted inMay 1, 2006: Magic Valley Uprising
Hobby miners flock to public streams
Growing pastime raises concerns about an outdated law
Posted inMarch 20, 2006: Town Shopping
Spotted owl or red herring?
Pretty much everyone agrees that logging on federal lands in the Pacific Northwest has declined by 80 percent since its heyday in the mid-1980s. Job losses in the region’s timber sector over the past two decades number in the tens of thousands. But don’t blame the critical habitat rule, or even the Endangered Species Act. […]
Posted inJanuary 23, 2006: Timberlands up for grabs
What’s the NRA’s beef with roadless areas?
I am a hunter who cares deeply about our hunting heritage and our ability to pass it on. Like most hunters, I consider organizations that work on behalf of hunting my friends, and those that work against hunting my adversaries. So I don’t like it when the lines become blurred. And today the lines are […]
Posted inNovember 14, 2005: Back On Track
Are we ready to learn the lessons of fire and flood?
Idaho Republican Sen. Larry Craig caused a stir Oct. 14, when he suggested that the 9th Ward, home of many of New Orleans’ poor, should be restored as a wetland. No one would call Craig a tree-hugger. Craig has built a career out of supporting dams and levee systems that have reshaped the West. He […]
Posted inOctober 31, 2005: The Public Lands' Big Cash Crop
Forest Service greases the skids for oil and gas
U.S. Forest Service officials say they’re overwhelmed by the recent flood of permit applications from energy companies. On the Dakota Prairie National Grassland alone, drilling permit applications have jumped from 20 to 110 during the past year. To ease the workload, the agency wants to stop doing full-scale environmental assessments on smaller energy projects. The […]
Posted inSeptember 5, 2005: Rangeland Revival
The restoration will not be televised
In nature, there is neither right or wrong — only consequences. The truth of that is demonstrated in After the Fires: The Ecology of Change in Yellowstone National Park. The wildfires that swept Yellowstone in 1988 were the first prime-time forest fires, according to the book. Television viewers stared aghast at the raging flames and […]
Posted inAugust 22, 2005: A Military Town Fights for its Life
Ferret recovery pioneer moves on
In his 18 years as Wall District ranger in Buffalo Gap National Grassland, Bill Perry led the effort to restore endangered black-footed ferrets. He helped write the plan to bring in captive-bred ferrets, engineered land swaps to consolidate habitat, and helped manage the pens where the animals were acclimated before being released. Perry built the […]
Posted inWotr
Why this ‘seasonal’ rides the public’s range
It’s day three into my 14th season at Grand Teton National Park, and now I must pass the infamous pack test. By carrying 45 pounds for 1.5 miles in less than 46 minutes, I’ll qualify for “arduous duty” as a wildland firefighter keeping an eye on lightning strikes. I wear a vest packed with weights […]
Posted inMarch 7, 2005: Anarchy in the Gas Fields
Forest Service employees and activist face racketeering charges
Developers’ attempt to silence critics of condo project could make history
Posted inJanuary 24, 2005: Written in the Rings
Written in the Rings
Tree rings reveal the climate of the past— and help foretell the future. Their message? Get ready for hot, dry times.
Posted inJanuary 24, 2005: Written in the Rings
Tree rings reveal a fiery past — and future
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Written in the Rings.” Tom Swetnam, the director of the Arizona tree-ring lab, grew up with wildfire. His father was a forest ranger in northern New Mexico, and after Swetnam graduated from college in the late 1970s, he spent two years as a seasonal […]
Posted inSeptember 27, 2004: Life After Old Growth
In a warming West, expect more fire
Overall wildfire size likely to double by 2100, new study concludes