Navajo director Sydney Freeland shares the story behind a career spent celebrating the lives of outsiders and underdogs.
Interview
Posted inJune 24, 2019: Losing Lake Coeur d'Alene
The ‘shenanigans’ behind a federal employee’s decision to blow the whistle
Pressured by higher-ups, a Fish and Wildlife field supervisor smoothed the way for a 28,000-home development along a fragile Arizona river.
Posted inJune 10, 2019: 'None of this happened the way you think it did'
The key to endangered species recovery? Communication.
A retired federal biologist says Trump’s Interior Department is more business as usual than critics claim.
Posted inArticles
America forgot the Chinese workers who built the railroad
Historian Gordon Chang’s new book attempts to correct that erasure.
Posted inArticles
Watchdogs hit a wall in accessing once-available immigration data
A Q&A on how the Justice Department is limiting access to crucial information on migrants.
Posted inArticles
Portraits of resilience
Through tintypes, Kaska Dena photographer Kali Spitzer creates collaborative images of her community.
Posted inArticles
Dollars and sense in the West’s power market
An outgoing utilities commissioner discusses Montana’s changing energy landscape.
Posted inArticles
New rules limiting clean water protections ignore stream science
What happens to part of a river network affects all of it.
Posted inDecember 24, 2018: Good news, bad news
Indigenous comics push back against hackneyed stereotypes
The ‘noble savage’ in comics is dead. Long live the Dakwäkãda Warriors.
Posted inDecember 10, 2018: Critical Mass
Rep. Raúl Grijalva intends to force a reckoning with climate change
A Democratic spitfire takes the helm of the House Committee on Natural Resources.
Posted inArticles
Ask a Scientist: How to make talking about science personal
Jonathan ‘Peck’ Overpeck studies climate change — and tweets about it, too.
Posted inArticles
Why the National Park advisory board imploded
An interview with board chairman Tony Knowles.
Posted inNovember 13, 2017: Solace and Perspective
Exploring rural California’s contradictions
Gabriel Tallent’s debut novel tells the story of a tough teenage girl’s survival.
Posted inNovember 13, 2017: Solace and Perspective
The West, when women are telling the story
Do women write differently about wilderness?
Posted inOctober 30, 2017: The Changing Face of Woods Work
Gina McCarthy holds out hope on climate policy
The former head of the EPA isn’t despairing despite Trump administration rollbacks.
Posted inArticles
The West’s dramatic wildfire season, explained
A fire ecologist on how it happened, and why communities will have to adapt.
Posted inOctober 2, 2017: Following Ancient Footsteps
Sally Jewell defends Interior Department legacy
As Obama’s policies are rolled back, his last Interior secretary reviews what’s at stake.
Posted inArticles
A conversation with Obama’s top Interior lawyer
A look at how the department has changed its relationships with tribes, and at legal battles on the horizon.
Posted inArticles
A way of unforgetting
Author Lauret Savoy on tracing personal and national history through landscapes.
Posted inArticles
Ask a Scientist: Why NOAA matters for the West
CIRES head Waleed Abdalati answers our questions.