COLORADO/UTAH In early September, Bill Rodgers, a Buick salesman in Knoxville, Tenn., landed a great deal. Rep. John Duncan, R-Tenn., introduced a bill to Congress ordering a land exchange that would give Rodgers 3,888 acres of Bureau of Land Management land, mostly in Utah on the Colorado border. In exchange, Rodgers would give 2,048 acres […]
Growth & Sustainability
Posted inSeptember 16, 2002: The Royal Squeeze
A cow of a time
There’ll be some verbal sparring, rangeland management tips, literary musing and maybe a little bird-watching at this year’s annual RangeNet conference, “Bovines or Biodiversity: The National Campaign to End Abusive Public Lands Ranching.” The three-day-long program in Boise, Idaho, includes talks by Jon Marvel of the Western Watersheds Project * which is sponsoring the conference […]
Posted inAugust 19, 2002: The Great Western Apocalypse
New Mexico ranchers push to graze preserve
Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, “Corruption and tragic history paralyze range reform on the Navajo reservation.” Northern New Mexico is known for more than fiery red chilis and smoldering mountain sunsets; it’s also notorious for skirmishes between its mostly […]
Posted inAugust 5, 2002: Land or money?
Land plan attracts an anti-grazing gorilla
Plan would put 1.7 million acres in hands of local trust
Posted inMay 27, 2002: Wolf at the door
Grazing foes float a buyout
But will ranchers and Congress buy in?
Posted inApril 15, 2002: Raising a stink
Fashion faux-pas in the forest
COLORADO Designer Ralph Lauren’s proposal for a land swap with the U.S. Forest Service has been sent back to the drawing board after encountering fierce local opposition. The swap called for the Forest Service to give Lauren 525 acres, including part of a public-access road that runs through his Double RL ranch near Ridgway, Colo. […]
Posted inMarch 18, 2002: How I lost my town
BLM director forced to resign
IDAHO Martha Hahn has been forced out of her job as the Idaho state director of the Bureau of Land Management in a housecleaning move by J. Steven Griles, deputy secretary of the Interior. Hahn announced on March 7 that she would resign rather than take a position with the National Park Service overseeing New […]
Posted inFebruary 18, 2002: Here lies the Rio Grande
Cheney picks former aide to oversee parks, BLM,wildlife
When Paul Hoffman went hunting in Wyoming’s Absaroka Mountains last fall, he shot a six-point bull elk. Then he cut it into steaks and burgers for his family to eat. Now he plans to take the stuffed head and antlers to Washington, D.C., to decorate his new office. “I think that’s one reason they picked […]
Posted inFebruary 18, 2002: Here lies the Rio Grande
Will bulldozers roll into Arizona’s Eden?
Rancher’s wilderness inholding caught in a decade-long feud
Posted inFebruary 4, 2002: Last dance for the sage grouse?
The West can govern itself
Democrat Daniel Kemmis has been the minority leader and the speaker of the Montana House of Representatives. He has been mayor of the university town of Missoula. He is an environmentalist. Yet in This Sovereign Land, Kemmis, now head of the Center for the Rocky Mountain West, argues that the national government must transfer power […]
Posted inJanuary 21, 2002: Finding the words
Unranchers gain ground
ARIZONA The Arizona Supreme Court has cleared another hurdle from the path of conservation groups that want to lease state grazing land and return it to pre-grazing conditions. On Nov. 21, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled 4-1 that the state land department can’t deny conservation groups the right to bid on state grazing leases. The […]
Posted inJanuary 21, 2002: Finding the words
Wheeling and dealing
UTAH Roads are again at the center of the long debate over Utah wilderness. Two environmental groups say they fear the Bureau of Land Management and the governor’s office have a secret deal in the works that would settle a dispute over Utah counties’ claims to thousands of dirt roads and trails on federal lands. […]
Posted inJanuary 21, 2002: Finding the words
A new vision for the BLM
Two conservation groups have teamed up on a report intended to shift the Bureau of Land Management away from its long-term emphasis on natural-resource extraction and toward conservation of the public lands. This reasonable and readable 74-page report by the National Wildlife Federation and Natural Resources Defense Council sets out a vision for the BLM’s […]
Posted inDecember 17, 2001: Bad moon rising
No go on state land reform
ARIZONA A coalition of developers, educators, ranchers and environmentalists has agreed to postpone an effort to preserve about 10 percent of Arizona’s 9.2 million acres of state trust land. Citing internal disagreement, the coalition has abandoned its attempt to put a preservation initiative on the 2002 ballot (HCN, 7/30/01: Not in our backyard). Since managers […]
Posted inDecember 3, 2001: Closing the wounds
Stargazers defend darkness in Arizona
Flagstaff becomes the first “International Dark-Sky City”
Posted inDecember 3, 2001: Closing the wounds
Cooperating on the Valles Caldera
A public preserve in New Mexico puts its trust in trustees
Posted inNovember 19, 2001: Bringing back the bosque
Homeland security drafts rangers
Scores of Western public-land rangers are no longer at their regular jobs, patrolling rangeland for illegal off-road activities or investigating endangered species smuggling. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, rangers from the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service have been assigned to guard federal buildings in Washington, D.C., […]
Posted inOctober 22, 2001: Healing the Gila
A monorail for the mountains?
Colorado considers a space-age alternative to asphalt
Posted inJuly 30, 2001: Not in our back yard
Counties cross the yellow line
UTAH Utah wilderness recently got a reprieve. In late June, a district judge ruled that three counties had illegally graded 16 undeveloped jeep tracks and footpaths located within Bureau of Land Management-maintained wilderness study areas and the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. The judge concluded that Garfield, Kane and San Juan counties had for several years […]
Posted inJuly 30, 2001: Not in our back yard
Not in our backyard
Arizona activists find common ground on state lands