Alan Rabinowitz might be the last person you’d expect to denounce the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s recent decision to designate critical habitat for jaguars. Rabinowitz was instrumental in creating the world’s first jaguar preserve in Belize in the eighties. He’s the head honcho of Panthera, an organization with the “sole mission” of protecting wild […]
Politics
Posted inFebruary 1, 2010: 'The environment ... is where we live'
Poltertics, 2010
Will this fall’s election chronicle a Republican resurrection in the West?
Posted inJanuary 11, 2010: Breakdown
Solidarity, not suits
After reading the recent interview with Kieran Suckling, it occurs to me the one reason we’re having so much trouble advancing meaningful conservation opportunities is we’re spending too much time, energy and money fighting each other (HCN, 12/21/09 & 1/4/10). The litigation and lawsuits advanced by the Center for Biological Diversity are having the exact […]
Posted inGoat
Water Bargain
It’s one more step in what’s been a long, slow trudge. But this step’s a big one. Last Thursday, negotiators released a final agreement on water rights in the Klamath River, moving closer to a settlement of the long-running water wars in the Klamath Basin. The Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement sets the terms for divvying […]
Posted inWotr
CON: When a wilderness bill is a sham
Montana politicians are usually quick to defend our state brand — “the last best place” — although they tend to falter when it comes to defending what makes our state the best. And that is our wildlands, the real last best places in Montana. They are the substance behind the image. For the past 20 […]
Posted inWotr
PRO: Sen. Tester’s Montana bill is a true collaborative effort
When Montana Democratic Sen. Jon Tester introduced his Forest Jobs and Recreation Act last July, he did something that is all too uncommon in today’s political world. He kept a promise. He’d told conservationists, loggers and recreationists that if they could reach agreement on contentious issues involving public lands — including wilderness designation, deciding where […]
Posted inJanuary 11, 2010: Breakdown
The EPA rides again
Agency swings into action, to industry’s dismay
Posted inGoat
The count is coming
All sorts of numbers emerge from the U.S. Census Bureau, but only one set of numbers is required by the U.S. Constitution. That’s the population of each state, which determines how many representatives the state has in the U.S. House of Representatives. The total is fixed by law at 435, and each state […]
Posted inGoat
They’re baa-aaack. . .
A sunken-eyed old man dressed in stiff, black Puritan clothes stalks a suburban neighborhood. The TV turns on by itself. A toy phone rings and rings — tinny and off-key — in the dead of night. A little blond girl crawls out of bed. Lifts the receiver to her ear, pauses, turns. Then, in a […]
Posted inRange
Ray Ring, Andy Stahl and the Clinton Roadless Rule
Ray Ring’s response to Andy Stahl’s letter (12-21 & 1-4 edition) taking exception to a point in Ray’s article on the Clinton Administration’s roadless area rulemaking ( 11-9 edition) was not adequate. While there are partisans within the Forest Service on each “side” of the roadless debate, anyone who works closely with the agency knows […]
Posted inArticles
Don’t squeeze the geezers in the great outdoors
Public land fees hurt seniors and the disabled.
Posted inRange
We are all preservationists now!
If you have yet to read Jonathan Thompson’s feature Wind Resistance in the December 09-January 10 edition you have a treat in store. By describing in vivid detail the politics surrounding wind power development in Wyoming, Jonathan elucidates what may be the largest cultural change which the West has experienced in this century so far […]
Posted inDecember 21, 2009: Wind Resistance
Roadless retaliations
Ray Ring’s article “Roadless-less” devotes considerable attention to a March, 2000, Forest Service employees’ union letter opposing the Clinton roadless rule (HCN, 11/9/09). According to Ring and the union, Forest Service employees who opposed the roadless rule faced “threats of reprisal from the (Clinton) administration …” To the contrary, the only such threats of which […]
Posted inGoat
Climate change by any other name …
In towns from Pocatello, Idaho, to Las Cruces, N.M., local governments are responding to the West’s changing climate. They’re cutting energy consumption, insulating homes, reducing water usage, and more — but often without ever mentioning “global warming” or “climate change”, loaded terms that can trigger heated debates. Instead, they’re promoting their policies under the auspices […]
Posted inGoat
A golden ruling
It’s not often that the world’s largest gold mining company doesn’t get what it wants, especially in the nation’s largest gold-producing state. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last week that Barrick Gold’s proposal to dig a 2,000-foot deep open pit at the Cortez Hill mine on Mount Tenabo lacks sufficient environmental review. The […]
Posted inDecember 7, 2009: Dueling Claims
Roadless: The prologue
I agree that tactics on both sides of the roadless issue have fouled the process and the intent of law (HCN, 11/9/09). To fully understand this matter, though, I think it’s important to go back to the RARE1 and RARE2 (Roadless Area Review) processes of the 1970s and 1980s, meant to identify potential wilderness areas […]
Posted inRange
The Pesticide Wars
If the American Farm Bureau Federation has its way, the issue of whether herbicide spraying over water requires a Clean Water Act permit will be heard by the Supreme Court. A coalition of agricultural groups led by the Federation has petitioned the nation’s highest court to reverse an appellate court decision which found that such […]
Posted inArticles
The Pesticide Wars
If the American Farm Bureau Federation has its way, the issue of whether herbicide spraying over water requires a Clean Water Act permit will be heard by the Supreme Court. A coalition of agricultural groups led by the Federation has petitioned the nation’s highest court to reverse an appellate court decision which found that such […]
Posted inGoat
Veteran namesakes
It’s Veteran’s Day. A military post, Fort Hood in Texas, has been much in the news of late on account of a tragic mass murder. And I’m a history buff. These threads all came together when I found out that Fort Hood was named for an army veteran — Gen. John Bell Hood. […]