Letter to the editor

Dear HCN, I read with interest Michelle Nijhuis’ fine piece on the Colorado Delta. As HCN so aptly puts it, the issue is really whether or not environmentalists can find the means to change the Law of the River. While I support and applaud the legal efforts of the Delta coalition (Southwest Center for Biological […]

Dear HCN, After the forest fires in New Mexico and Colorado, I had to write. This could be nature getting back at the hobby ranchers and interlopers. On the Front Range in Colorado and New Mexico, you don’t have corporate tree farms, so most of the interface lands from the Plains to the U.S. Forest […]

Dear HCN, The recent issue on wildfires and exotic weeds continues a disappointing trend in your paper, of peddling panaceas rather than creating dialogue. In the opening page, the “usual suspects’ are rounded up – grazing, farming, roads, mines – and from there it reads like a tabloid account of the Jon-Benet Ramsey murder. One […]

Dear HCN, In response to the lead article, “After the fall” by Steve Thompson, and Ed Marston’s column (HCN, 5/8/00), here is Plum Creek’s perspective. We at Plum Creek disagree with the premise of both the column and the article that sets up an artificial conflict between small mills and large forest products firms such […]

Dear HCN, Diane Pietrasanta says that her wilderness fee program in the Sierra should generate enough revenue to “pay five or six seasonal rangers where there would have been none” (HCN, 2/14/00: Land of the fee). I think the real issue is not “should we charge fees?” or “how much should we charge?” but rather […]

Dear HCN, I’ve been working with reclamation in the Great Basin for 17 years and personally know the learned gentlemen interviewed by Jon Christensen. Your article left me feeling like all our efforts over the years (HCN, 5/22/00: Save Our Sagebrush) have little show. I agree that the crested wheat plantations are more like museums […]

Dear HCN, Jim Gerber, president of Citizens for a User Friendly Forest, has written several letters to the editor of High Country News in which he has neglected to identify his affiliation. CUFF supports motorized access to national forests. The vice president of CUFF, Adina Cook, is also the public-lands director of the Blue Ribbon […]

Dear HCN, I am responding to several letters in the May 8 edition. One letter said that “enviros are mostly intruders funded by wealthy foundations.” Those foundations are set up by nonprofit corporations supported by the donations of many environmentally conscious citizens and companies. An individual cannot make any impact on the money-obsessed power structure […]

Dear HCN, Thank you for the thoughtful coverage dealing with weeds across the West, and especially the discussion of the cheatgrass/fire cycle problem. A quick point of clarification, though. Your articles seemed to return to a theme of grazing as a central cause. In my experience, grazing may not be necessary for land to experience […]

Dear HCN, The recent article by Steve Stuebner about wolves in Idaho demonstrates why wolf recovery is an ongoing failure (HCN, 5/22/00: Activist calls for cease-fire on wolves). If it were not for a few livestock-free safe havens like Yellowstone Park and the core of central Idaho wilderness, there would be no wolf recovery whatsoever. […]

Dear HCN, Although Jon Christensen’s story on weeds, fire, and the Great Basin was informative, he left out an important ingredient to the story (HCN, 5/22/00: Save Our Sagebrush). The same tools that he attributes to the ecological collapse of the region – fire and grazing – can be used to restore the region. Spring […]

Dear HCN, In a back-page essay, you show a photograph of Sen. Gale McGee, William Ruckelshaus, and me: Nathaniel Reed (HCN, 3/27/00: HCN at 30: ‘On faith alone’). I was serving as Assistant Secretary of Interior for Fish, Wildlife and Parks. The story of how the poisoned eagles were located, the intense investigation that followed, […]

Dear HCN, I’m disgusted with the tone and inaccuracies of Adam Burke’s article, “One dam, two rallies” (HCN, 4/24/00: One dam, two rallies). “What’s the best way to build support for tearing down a dam?” he wrongly asks. None of the organizations at the rally ever supported “tearing down a dam’; they were advocating the […]

Dear HCN, Apropos the item “Guides may get guidelines” (HCN, 3/27/00: Guides may get guidelines), Idaho, after long and mighty labors, has produced a draft “Wolf Management Plan.” Among other bemusing provisions in the plan is one which would provide monetary compensation to guides and outfitters for “economic harm caused individual outfitting businesses by decreasing […]

Dear HCN, I read with interest your March 13 article about Jim Catron, “The Last Celtic Warlord lives in New Mexico” – which leads the reader to believe he is some kind of hero of the West. Many of us here in Catron County see it otherwise. We see him as a pompous, hot-headed little […]

Dear HCN, In Debra Donahue’s opinion, “The writing is on the wall: Livestock grazing on semi-arid public ranges is uneconomic and unsustainable. The only solution is removing livestock altogether” (HCN, 2/28/00: A prof takes on the sacred cow). I’m not familiar with the implications of that statement in the state of Wyoming; I do know […]

Dear HCN, Larry Warren said in the April 10 High Country News that, “Beginning May 23, Zion (National Park) becomes the first Western park, and just the second in the national park system, to go carless. Acadia National Park in Maine was the first.” Mr. Warren should check out the history of Alaska’s Mt. McKinley […]

Dear HCN, Senator Laird Noh’s article “The Old West is small potatoes in the new economy” (HCN, 4/10/00: The Old West is small potatoes in the new economy) provided a clear view of the shifting power structure out West. Sen. Noh’s story is a lesson in political power, and the moral of the story is […]

Dear HCN, I applaud your final installment of the series titled “The political dynamics of the Interior West” (HCN, 4/10/00). I thoroughly enjoyed all eight of the essays by guest columnists and their views on the future of the West. Creating the opportunity for dialogue on the future of our lands is critical, and I […]

Dear HCN, I’ve just devoured your excellent “Beyond the Revolution” issue. If you send me five or 10 more copies, I promise I’ll get it into the hands of the right people. Joel GarreauBroad Run, Virginia The writer is the author of The Nine Nations of North America. This article appeared in the print edition […]