Outdated rules and budget shortfalls make it hard to catch.
Public lands
Posted inOctober 27, 2014: Defuse the West
Mapping threats on public land
Intimidation of federal officials is widespread across the West.
Posted inOctober 27, 2014: Defuse the West
Defuse the West
Public-land employees are easy targets for a violent, government-hating fringe.
Posted inOctober 27, 2014: Defuse the West
Roots of rebellion: A forum
Four experts discuss threats to federal public-lands employees and where we go from here.
Posted inOctober 27, 2014: Defuse the West
Related High Country News coverage
Nevada’s ugly tug-of-war (1995) County commissioner courts bloodshed (1995) Utah counties bulldoze the BLM, Park Service (1996) Nevadans drive out forest supervisor (1999) Shoveling vs. sniveling (2000) Showdown on the Nevada range (2001) Change comes slowly to Escalante country (2003) Road warriors back on the offensive (2003) Rebels with a lost cause (2007 Sagebrush Rebel […]
Posted inOctober 27, 2014: Defuse the West
Reports from the front lines
Excerpts from official accounts of threats against U.S. Forest Service and BLM employees.
Posted inOctober 27, 2014: Defuse the West
Western states eye federal lands—again
The ultra-right ‘remedy’ for public lands.
Posted inArticles
How to pass a wilderness bill in 2014
Lessons from southwest Colorado’s Hermosa Creek.
Posted inArticles
Obama declares new national monument in the mountains above Los Angeles
Trails, campgrounds and wildlands will qualify for federal funding for improvements.
Posted inArticles
Extreme Makeover, the BLM episode
How a gigantic federal bureaucracy is positioning itself to manage resources at a “landscape” level.
Posted inArticles
A public land swap for the rich
As a deal gets sweetened, how do you measure what’s fair?
Posted inArticles
KDNK speaks with HCN reporter Claudine LoMonaco
On troubling corporate and Forest Service conduct in Arizona.
Posted inArticles
After 11 years, Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument reopens
Increased border security means that all 517 square miles are again open to the public.
Posted inSeptember 15, 2014: Books & Essays
Beauty and chaos, standing together
Review of ‘The Carry Home; Lessons from the American Wilderness’ by Gary Ferguson.
Posted inArticles
Celebrating the birth of the Wilderness Act
High Country News coverage of the evolution of wilderness since 1970.
Posted inSeptember 1, 2014: Lost in the Woods
Lost in the woods
How the Forest Service is botching its biggest restoration project.
Posted inGoat
Alaska’s Senate race and the fate of the West’s public lands
Republicans look to Alaska in their bid to overtake the U.S. Senate.
Posted inAugust 4, 2014: Idaho's Sewer System
The Ansel Adams Wilderness
The Ansel Adams WildernessPeter Essick, foreward by Jamie Williams112 pages, hardcover:$22.95.National Geographic Society, 2014. For 25 years, Peter Essick traveled the globe as a National Geographic photographer, and recently he was named one of the world’s 40 most influential nature photographers. In 2010, Essick began “a potentially controversial” project in his native California: shooting in […]
Posted inAugust 4, 2014: Idaho's Sewer System
The Latest: 20,000 Utah acres protected from drilling
BackstoryFor years, Utah conservationists struggled to protect sensitive environments from four-wheeling, oil and gas and other development – until conservative lawmakers like Republican Rep. Rob Bishop realized that state-held lands with wilderness characteristics could be used to bargain for mineral-rich, federally owned tracts. In 2013, Bishop began negotiating a compromise with wilderness advocates, off-roaders and […]