The Magazine

This special issue focuses on books and essays that help
us understand the complex, chaotic West.

Plans to fence as much as possible of the U.S.-Mexico
border could derail the return of rare jaguars to the
Southwest.

Bighorn sheep and longtime sheep ranchers face off in
Hells Canyon, where a legal battle over public-lands grazing could
cause ripples across the West.

As population growth and climate change stress the
region’s water supplies, Westerners think hard about
recycling their effluent, although some worry about the possibly
harmful endocrine disrupters found in cleaned-up
effluent.

Pete McGrail believes the volcanic basalt that underlies
the Columbia River Basin may hold a cure for global warming: carbon
sequestration.

In Arizona’s Sonoran Desert, good intentions are
responsible for the introduction of exotic buffelgrass – but
all the good intentions in the world may not be enough to save the
desert now that this invasive and fire-prone plant is
spreading.

Westerners have always been deeply in love with their
firearms, and gun-shop owners like Ryan Horsley are determined to
make sure that nothing comes between them

Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to save the planet through
hydrogen power, but critics say the notion is just hot
air

The group Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife has helped to
protect a lot of Western land and wildlife – while doing its
best to kill off as many predators as possible.

Monsanto’s genetically modified Roundup Ready
alfalfa may take over the West, as the company re-engineers the
world to conform to its business plan.

The brutal murder of a Japanese tourist shines an
unwelcome spotlight on the social problems plaguing Arizona’s
beautiful but troubled Havasupai Reservation.

Prescott and the Verde Valley fight out the future of one
of the West’s last free-flowing streams.

Also in
this issue:
New Mexico looks to build its
border industry by attracting suppliers for Mexican manufacturers
across the border in Juarez.

Tiny Vilas, Colo., thought it was a great idea to open an
online school and enroll at-risk students from far-away Denver
– but neither the students nor the school district ended up
scoring well at report card time.

Also in this
Issue: Global warming spurs calls for new dams in the
West – but where will the water come from to fill
them?

Craig Childs lifts the rug of modern-day Phoenix, Ariz.,
to examine the remnants of the civilization that preceded it — the
Hohokam people, who also built a great city in the middle of the
desert, and flourished until the day they ran out of water.

Also in this issue: Just over the
Arizona-Sonora border, Tohono O’odham traditionalists have joined
environmental groups in fighting a proposed Mexican hazardous waste
landfill.

Without a college degree, work on the oil and gas fields
is the best job you can get in the rural West – unless, of
course, it kills you.

Also in this
issue: Thirsty Santa Fe, N.M., considers an innovative
law requiring all new buildings to install rainwater-harvesting
systems.

Migratory beekeeper John Miller hauls his hives back and
forth across the West, pollinating everything from almonds to
apples, but a nasty little parasite called the varroa mite and the
mysterious, deadly Colony Collapse Disorder are making life much
harder for him and his buzzing business partners.

Quagga mussels – an extraordinarily prolific and
costly invasive species – have appeared in Lake Mead, and no
one is sure how to keep these unwanted newcomers from infesting the
West.

Also in this issue: Condor
134’s harrowing experience with lead poisoning exemplifies
these endangered birds’ greatest challenge – which some
advocates hope to ease by banning lead bullets in
California.

The Sonoran Desert homeland of the Tohono O’odham
Nation has become a nerve-wracking police state, caught in the
crossfire between drug and immigrant smugglers and the U.S. Border
Patrol.

Also in this issue:

The Forest Service has overhauled its cumbersome forest-planning
process, but many experts say the agency may have gone too
far.

Water efficiency has long been touted as a silver bullet
for the West?s water problems, but too much efficiency can cause
problems of its own, especially in the fragile Colorado River
Delta.

Also in this issue: In Idaho
and Wyoming, old eminent domain laws allow private entities to
condemn landowners? property ? as Peter and Judy Riede discovered
when J.R. Simplot Co. announced plans to expand its phosphate mine
and build a road across their ranch.

Judge Jim Redden has given the Bush administration an
ultimatum: Submit a viable plan for salmon restoration, or face the
possible removal of four dams on the lower Snake River.

Also in this issue:

Homeless families
aren’t found only in urban areas. They’re also
struggling to survive in the rural West, as shown by the story of
Barbara Trivitt and her two children, who lived in a Jeep in Coos
Bay, Oregon, this fall.