How it arrived and how much it matters for the climate.
Politics
Posted inJuly 21, 2014: On the Wild Edge
Motorheads gone wild
An off-roading conservationist navigates some gnarly landscape on the road to more protection for the Utah desert.
Posted inJuly 21, 2014: On the Wild Edge
Support what you preserve
It’s nice to see more land set aside for conservation and our future children and grandchildren, but this must be accompanied by federal funds to support the infrastructure (“What the president can do right now for conservation,” HCN, 5/26/14). That means our dear leaders need to allocate enough money for people to monitor the parks, […]
Posted inJuly 21, 2014: On the Wild Edge
We’re prepared to buy back our own land
On June 9, 1855, the Cayuse, Umatilla and Walla Walla people agreed to a treaty that ceded 6.4 million acres of land to the United States, in what would become northeast Oregon and southwest Washington. In return for that lavish gift, 250,000 acres were reserved for the tribes, “all of which tract shall be set […]
Posted inArticles
The privatization of public campground management
All the info you need to decide whether you love or hate that the Forest Service uses concessionaires.
Posted inArticles
Concessionaire Campgrounds: An Explainer
The Privatization of public campgrounds | Create Infographics
Posted inGoat
Is the Clean Water Act under attack?
Big Ag wants rollbacks in fundamental legislation.
Posted inJune 23, 2014: River of No Return
The man behind a New Mexico county’s fracking ban
Last year Mora became the first county in the nation to permanently ban oil and gas development.
Posted inJune 23, 2014: River of No Return
A false divide
Dan Baum’s recent article would have us believe that gun violence prevention is a deeply divided, polarized issue. It is not. The fringe of the gun-rights movement, who are a small proportion of gun owners, and their deep-pocketed backers in the NRA would like us to believe this narrative, because it foments fear and helps […]
Posted inJune 23, 2014: River of No Return
Wannabe gonzo drivel
The false-equivalence tagline ” ‘gun nuts’ on both sides of the debate,” plus the Hunter S. Thompson wannabe photo should have been warning enough, but I went ahead and read Dan Baum’s article (“The Great Gun-Rights Divide,” HCN 5/26/14). It didn’t fail to disappoint. While not nearly as amusing as Thompson’s gonzo journalism, it was […]
Posted inJune 23, 2014: River of No Return
Which tributaries should be protected like the rivers they feed?
New rules may help regulators enforce an ambiguous law.
Posted inArticles
Border patrol runs roughshod on public lands
In its quest to secure the U.S./Mexico border, the U.S. Border Patrol is running roughshod over huge swaths of desert wilderness with complete immunity from U.S. environmental laws. That’s what Ray Ring, a senior editor at High Country News, discovered on a recent reporting trip to the border for his feature story “Border Out of […]
Posted inGoat
Sons of Wichita: understanding the enigmatic Koch brothers
The Koch brothers have become a household names in the past decade. Three out of four brothers are major players in energy development in the West and across the country. Two are powerbrokers for the conservative right and have been at the forefront of bringing libertarianism into the political mainstream. In the energy and political […]
Posted inJune 9, 2014: Border Out of Control
Border out of control
National security runs roughshod over the Arizona wild.
Posted inGoat
Is immigration reform an environmental issue?
The question of whether humanity can expand indefinitely without running roughshod over the very environment it depends on once stood at the center of the American environmental movement. Public concern reached a fever pitch after the Sierra Club published Paul Ehrlich’s bestselling The Population Bomb in 1968. Within that debate quietly lurked questions about how […]
Posted inGoat
The West’s crucial 2014 U.S. Senate races
The big question of the 2014 midterm elections — other than, “Eric Cantor lost?!” — is which party will emerge with control of the U.S. Senate. A number of Western states will host Senate races this year – Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico and Alaska – but only three will be hotly contested, […]
Posted inGoat
Infographic: Hey, Wildlife Services — what did you kill?
Earlier this month, Wildlife Services, the U.S. Department of Agriculture division responsible for animal control, released data indicating that it killed over four million creatures in 2013 — a million more than it did the previous year. The agency, whose stated mission is to provide “leadership and expertise to resolve wildlife conflicts,” undertakes plenty of […]
Posted inGoat
Wildland firefighting takes funding from other vital programs
A new federal report this week shows how dollars meant for forest restoration and wildfire preparedness often get diverted to fighting wildfires. It’s been that way for years, and as fires get bigger and more expensive to fight, the problem only gets worse. As we reported last summer: “Just a few days before (the Rim […]
Posted inJune 9, 2014: Border Out of Control
Crazed ‘patriotism’
Concerning the Sagebrush Rebellion timeline, (“The BLM vs. Cliven Bundy, HCN, 5/12/14), et tu, High Country News? “After a tense standoff between armed militiamen and federal agents …” Somehow these bullying military-armed lawbreakers have convinced the media, including HCN, to associate them with the Second Amendment and the “well-regulated militia” delineated there. These confused and […]