The Magazine

The land-grant university system has been challenged and is slowly beginning to change.

Ski resorts begin to resemble the Third World as Africans and others come to take low-paying service jobs, but have trouble finding housing.

The Great Basin has often been seen as a wasteland, but now new visions are defining the region.

New Commissioner of Reclamation Dan Beard seeks to make his agency more environmentally sensitive.

It’s not a fluke, it’s not just the drought, and it’s not careless smokers. Decades of all-out logging and all-out fire suppression torched Yellowstone in 1988, ignited the fatal Colorado fire last summer, and set the stage for the thousands of fires in between.

Overpumping has drained Idaho’s Snake River aquifer until rivers like the Big Lost run dry.

The first wolves return to Yellowstone amid much fanfare and mixed reactions.

Denver International Airport may become a giant boondoggle.

Uncontrolled growth and the relocation of Intel Corporation to Albuquerque force the city to re-elvaluate its water policy.

The National Park Service may be downsized and reorganized.

An unusual consensus may stave off industrial tourism in Washington’s Methow Valley.

The most important institutions in the West enter a critical period.

As some irrigators get loose with the law, Oregon’s Umatilla River is being depleted.

Environmentalists face upcoming elections with some anxiety.

Tucson activists fight development of the desert’s ironwood forest.

Timber companies are eager to log the West’s still-smoldering forests.

The uncontrolled growth of Western states makes planning essential.

The deaths of two hikers in Utah raise legal and ethical questions about risk and responsibility.

Newly elected Santa Fe Mayor Debbie Jaramillo promises progressive, populist changes.

Conservationists discover state lands and bid against ranchers to lease them.