The Magazine

Wildfire arsonist Raymond Oyler is tried for murder after five firefighters die in California’s Esperanza Fire.

The Southern Utes overcame poverty and oppression to become a wealthy and powerful tribe with nationwide energy holdings.

An “open-water” swimmer describes the exhilarating challenge of swimming for very long distances in very cold water.

Human beings are the greatest threat — and the only hope — for the Colorado River’s razorback sucker.

Washington’s Hanford Site and New Mexico’s White Sands Missile Range both hold deadly nuclear contamination — along with unspoiled landscapes rich in wildlife.

Every spring, Grand Canyon boatmen meet for an educational seminar — and a rousing good time.

Maps and statistics reveal the effects Nevada’s gold-mining has on taxes and employment, among other things.

In a long, nerve-racking undercover operation, a federal wildlife agent brought down one of the world’s most notorious rare-insect traffickers.

Every winter in Quartzsite, Ariz., tens of thousands of RVers form an impromptu community in the desert.

On the U.S.-Mexico border, the corrupt and futile War on Drugs takes a violent toll on the poorest people.

Evidence suggests that wolves may have returned to Colorado, and they are here to stay.

A group of determined activists in Mountain View, N.M., fights for environmental justice in a poor and polluted neighborhood.

California’s Westlands irrigation district wants to blame a tiny endangered fish for its water troubles, but the real culprit is simply long-term drought.

When wind turbines threaten his ranch in the Laramie Range, Wyoming oilman Diemer True becomes a born-again conservationist.

A tribal attempt to protect New Mexico’s Mount Taylor spawns a bitter struggle over uranium mining, religious differences and dueling historical claims to an ancient landscape.

Thousands of years ago, the Ice Age Floods reshaped the landscape of eastern Washington, along with our knowledge of geology.

Judge Clarence Brimmer is determined to bring down Clinton’s roadless forest rule, which has been mired in lawsuits ever since its controversial birth.

Refugees struggle to find a home in an unfamiliar land.

A controversial water project planned by Las Vegas threatens the tiny inhabitants of many remote Great Basin springs.

How we find it; how we understand it; how we care for it.