Letter to the editor

Dear HCN, The article on the 40th anniversary of the Wilderness Act (HCN, 3/3/03: The Wild Card) gave readers the impression that, until recently, conservationists always advocated multi-area wilderness legislative packages, that the supposed slowdown in wilderness designation is something new, and that compromises of the Wilderness Act have been routine (and desirable) since 1964. […]

Dear HCN, Thank you for the article on Nevada wilderness (HCN, 3/3/03: The Wild Card). Many of us promoting and protecting wilderness in Nevada didn’t know how much was being traded off. Thanks to your intrepid author, we do now. I’m dismayed that the bill promotes development and that more is proposed in exchange for […]

Dear HCN, Ed Marston, I want to thank you for your column on immigration and overpopulation (HCN, 2/3/03: Son of immigrants has a change of heart). I’m sure you have taken a lot of criticism since then, but you are right in what you’ve said. Overall, people refuse to admit that every problem in the […]

Dear HCN, George Wuerthner is a skilled photographer and a committed activist, but he’s a lousy economist. His letter (HCN, 2/17/03: Condos or cows? Neither!) and his recent book, Welfare Ranching, amply testify to this. Wuerthner asserts that “ranching isn’t preventing sprawl now, nor will it in the future.” Yet he also states that high […]

Dear HCN, I am so tired of seeing these uncomplicated, sentimental appeals that place themselves on the side of pro- or anti-immigration and grace your pages with alarming regularity. I am appalled by the embedded hypocrisy that decries immigrants (read: brown-skinned) encroaching on “our” public space and representing a danger to “our wildlife” when “we” […]

Dear HCN, As the saying goes, there are none so blind as those who will not see. Such blindness must be willful indeed, when the impaired need look no further than nine pages away to sees the light. In his essay, “A son of immigrants has a change of heart” (HCN, 2/3/03: The son of […]

Dear HCN, None of the writers in HCN — including Marston (HCN, 2/3/03: The son of immigrants has a change of heart), Nijhuis (HCN, 12/23/02: Holding open the door to the good life up north) and Pritchett (HCN, 2/17/03: Anti-immigration myopia) — understand that the world population grows by 11,000 babies per hour, 264,000 per […]

Dear HCN, In my view, Ed Marston’s column “A son of immigrants has a change of heart” (HCN, 2/3/03: The son of immigrants has a change of heart) is wrong in several particulars. First, overpopulation is, as it was in the Rev. Malthus’ day (a couple of centuries ago, when he first suggested that the […]

Dear HCN, Oh, come on, Ed! Your apology for anti-immigration sentiment bespeaks loss of nerve (HCN, 2/3/03: The son of immigrants has a change of heart). That is not vintage Marston. Despair overwhelms me, too, sometimes, as our grotesque problems proliferate daily. But you know very well, or should know, that Mexican immigration is a […]

Dear HCN, The debate over cows on public lands (HCN, 1/20/03: THE GREAT RANCHING DEBATE) missed the best book I’ve yet read on the subject. HCN probably reviewed it back in 1995 when it was published, but its emphasis on national dialogue between opposing factions and realistically looking at what actually happens on the ground […]

Dear HCN, Just wanted to let you know what a great article I thought the essay “Fenced out of Bush’s gated empire” by Mary Sojourner was (HCN, 11/11/02: Fenced out of Bush’s gated empire). With so much pressure being put on publishers to only report that which is favorable for the ruling establishment and their political causes, […]

Dear HCN, I hope Ed Marston found his confession about his “change of heart” regarding immigration therapeutic (HCN, 2/3/03: The son of immigrants has a change of heart). Rather than wring his hands in public, he should take his ideas to their logical conclusion: a 30-foot border wall and citizenship for immigrants that have their […]

Dear HCN, Phil Cafaro’s letter “Real environmentalists don’t support immigration” and Ed Marston’s column on a similar topic (HCN, 2/3/03: The son of immigrants has a change of heart) strike me as a tad myopic. Are the lands in the West more worthy of preservation than those in Mexico; does not putting up barriers to […]

Dear HCN, A recent High Country News article about the Northern Cheyenne tribe’s battles over coal (HCN, 1/20/03: A breath of fresh air) includes an allegation by Gail Small that the settlement of the New World Mine battle near Yellowstone National Park several years ago was an example of “environmental racism” because the conservation groups […]

Dear HCN, Ranching advocates like Ed Marston and Rick Knight present a faulty argument when they assert that ranching can prevent sprawl (HCN, 1/20/03: THE GREAT RANCHING DEBATE). If we wish to prevent sprawl and its effects — a worthy goal — we need to implement effective land-conservation strategies. Ranching as a land-preservation strategy is […]

Dear HCN, I was greatly disappointed with Rebecca Clarren’s recent article on Oregon’s land-use legacy (HCN, 11/25/02: Planning’s poster child grows up). Her basic premise — using a handful of anecdotes and personal beliefs from interviewees to argue there is sweeping discontent with Oregon’s land-use system — is shoddy. Poll after poll shows that support […]

Dear HCN, As a planning director for Linn County, Ore., for 13 years (1981-94) I felt a responsibility to respond to Rebecca Clarren’s article, “Planning’s poster child grows up” (HCN, 11/25/02: Planning’s poster child grows up). There are a few inaccuracies; however, I found the article to be well-balanced. On the whole, the planning program […]

Dear HCN, “In search of the Glory Days” (HCN, 12/23/02: In search of the Glory Days) follows what has become a tradition at HCN — nostalgia for the West that has passed or is passing. In this case, it is the glory days of mining that are mourned and the present days of outdoor recreation […]

Dear HCN, Although I was pleased to see an HCN column touching upon immigration issues (HCN, 12/23/02: Holding open the door to the good life up north), Michelle Nijhuis painted a very one-sided picture of U.S. immigration policy. She submits that allowing illegal immigrants to use the matricula card as a form of legal identification […]

Dear HCN, I remember Leadville during the moly days and it was not a pleasant place — if one had longer hair, drove a Volkswagen and committed the sin of being an ecologist. I remember AMAX coming to my town, Crested Butte, offering to remove a mountain there, and having to fight them for five […]