A national forest tries to rein in recreation
Wildlife
Posted inJanuary 17, 2000: STOP
In their own words
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. “It’s really a pivotal moment. The battle lines have been drawn. We’re pointing our fingers, but we’re pointing them pretty much at ourselves. We’re saying that we have to start exercising restraint in when and where we choose to recreate. A lot of people […]
Posted inJanuary 17, 2000: STOP
‘They’re not good stewards of the land’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Jim Gonzales lives in Minturn, Colo., and grew up hunting elk, deer and grouse with his father, who mined zinc and lead at the now-defunct Eagle Mine, near Vail. He prowled the backcountry roads in a four-wheel drive until two decades ago, when a […]
Posted inJanuary 17, 2000: STOP
‘Managing for biodiversity is a mistake’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Lou Dawson, a guidebook writer in Carbondale, Colo., was the first person to ski down Colorado’s 54 “fourteeners.” He also hunts, jeeps, snowmobiles and once started an avalanche while downhill skiing out of bounds at Aspen Highlands, suffering an injury that still nags him: […]
Posted inDecember 20, 1999: Unleashing the Snake
Westerners take sides on road ban
Around the West this winter, citizens flocked to Forest Service “listening sessions,” part of an initial scoping process to collect comments on President Clinton’s October directive to protect roadless forests (HCN, 11/8/99). Conservationists dominated regional meetings held in 10 cities, including Portland, Missoula, Salt Lake City and Albuquerque. Many supported the Oregon-based Heritage Forest Campaign: […]
Posted inDecember 20, 1999: Unleashing the Snake
Barely there
After decades of searching, federal biologists haven’t found a single grizzly bear in Montana and Idaho’s Bitterroot/Selway ecosystem. But the Missoula-based Alliance for the Wild Rockies and seven other local environmental organizations say there may be a remnant population – one that people have overlooked. The groups recently launched a “Great Grizzly Search.” It involves […]
Posted inDecember 20, 1999: Unleashing the Snake
Salmon crisis is a kaleidoscope of complexity
My mother was fascinated by the Columbia River and the fate of the salmon. This was partly because I work with these issues, but also because they have the kaleidoscopic complexity and human idiocy that all really hard problems have. She thought those were the only problems worth our time. From her home in Salt […]
Posted inDecember 20, 1999: Unleashing the Snake
Counties grab for control of national forests
Last month, the House of Representatives struck a blow for local control of the national forests. For decades, counties have received 25 percent of the revenue from Forest Service timber harvested within their borders to fund county schools and roads. But in this decade, as federal logging has declined by 70 percent, so have timber […]
Posted inDecember 20, 1999: Unleashing the Snake
Hanford leaves a surprising Cold War legacy
Wahluke means “walking uphill a long way” in the Wanapum Indian language. That’s an apt metaphor for the more than three-decade battle for the Wahluke Slope – a significant part of the last untouched sagebrush desert in the Columbia Basin. For 30 years, farmers and conservationists have fought over what would happen to this land […]
Posted inDecember 20, 1999: Unleashing the Snake
Bulldozers roll in Tucson
TUCSON, Ariz. – As a bulldozer rolled across a patch of desert, Esther Underwood smiled. It was a brisk, windy December day at the edge of one of Tucson’s rapidly growing suburbs as the dozer scooped up desert scrub and knocked over prickly pear and cholla cacti. “Isn’t that pretty?” Underwood said of the bulldozer. […]
Posted inDecember 6, 1999: Peggy Godfrey's long, strange trip
A river too warm
Three environmental groups have sued the Environmental Protection Agency over the warm wastewater that flows out of the Potlatch Corp. pulp and paper mill in Lewiston, Idaho. The Lands Council, Idaho Rivers United and the Idaho Conservation League say bull trout, salmon and steelhead can’t survive when the Snake River heats up. All the fish […]
Posted inDecember 6, 1999: Peggy Godfrey's long, strange trip
A bighorn dilemma
Should predators be killed to protect prey? That’s the strategy in New Mexico, where the state’s Game Commission says killing mountain lions is the best way to bolster dwindling populations of desert bighorn sheep. To save the remaining 220 sheep, most of which have been reintroduced by the state’s Fish and Game Department, the commission […]
Posted inDecember 6, 1999: Peggy Godfrey's long, strange trip
Save land now
In 1948, the state of Montana bought a 67,000-acre ranch near the southern flank of the Bob Marshall Wilderness Area in order to protect land for wintering elk and deer. The Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks manages the tract, known as the Blackfoot-Clearwater Wildlife Management Area, but private inholdings are increasingly susceptible to […]
Posted inDecember 6, 1999: Peggy Godfrey's long, strange trip
An angry, compassionate memorial to a mysterious tragedy
A new book reconstructs and analyzes all that led up to the deadly firestorm on Storm King Mountain where 14 firefighters died.
Posted inNovember 22, 1999: Go tell it on the mountain
Hunters cry: too many predators
A booming wolf population around Yellowstone National Park has local sportsmen up in arms. More than 2,500 people have sent in a dollar to join the newly formed Friends of the Northern Yellowstone Elk Herd, according to founder Robert Fanning. The group wants to take wolves off the endangered species list and give the state […]
Posted inNovember 22, 1999: Go tell it on the mountain
Tree-sitters and timber company celebrate
Sarah Vekasi was prepared to spend the winter perched in an old Douglas fir tree near the town of Randle, Wash., in order to stop the trade of old-growth forest out of public ownership. Thanks to a recent reworking of a complicated land swap, it looks like she’ll stay warm, dry and on the ground. […]
Posted inNovember 22, 1999: Go tell it on the mountain
Nevadans drive out forest supervisor
RENO, Nev. – After enduring a year and a half of what she calls Nevada’s “fed bashing,” Gloria Flora couldn’t take it anymore. The supervisor of the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, the largest national forest in the lower 48 states, submitted her resignation Nov. 8. But Flora didn’t go quietly. Instead, she used her resignation to […]
Posted inNovember 8, 1999: A new road for the public lands
Score one for the owl
A federal judge has clamped down on permits for new subdivisions, roads, power lines, shopping malls, and other projects in the habitat of the endangered cactus ferruginous pygmy-owl in and around Tucson. Many of Tucson’s suburbs continued to approve subdivisions after the pygmy-owl was listed in 1997, despite a county-wide effort to preserve the owl’s […]
Posted inNovember 8, 1999: A new road for the public lands
USFS plans for more planning
The Forest Service proposes to improve national forests by reshaping the 15-year management plans that guide them. The agency’s draft rule says plans must emphasize ecological balance and sustainable use of forests, boost public involvement during the planning process, and shift some decision-making from regional and national offices to forest-level managers. The current system of […]
Posted inNovember 8, 1999: A new road for the public lands
A road-ripper’s report
-The Road-Ripper’s Guide to Wildland Road Removal takes up where the first four Road-Ripper’s Guides left off. While the first four explain legal and political strategies for challenging different land-management agencies to close and remove roads, this guide explains how to make sure those roads are removed correctly.” * Bethanie Walder In 1997, Forest Service […]