Feature

Bad moon rising

Back in the '70s, Montana led the way in progressive environmental legislation, but now with its economy faltering, those laws are being eviscerated, and environmentalists need to find a new strategy.

Dear Friends

Dear Friends

Winter break; Ray Ring writes on Montana; good books and such; visitors; Radio HCN update; HCN gets honorable mention for John B. Oakes award.

Tommie Bell: Supporter and sustainer

Muriel "Tommie" Bell, wife and partner of HCN founder Tom Bell, is fondly remembered as a strong, loving, sustaining woman.

News

Gold may bury tribe's path to its past

The Quechan tribe is fighting the Bush administration's revival of a controversial mine in California's southern Mojave Desert, where Glamis Gold Ltd. plans to mine gold on a site sacred to the tribe.

The Latest Bounce

ANWR drilling plan derailed in Congress; four dams on Lower Snake won't be breached; Montana game rancher Lew Wallace says he'll shoot his elk; Rocky Flats cleanup hits South Carolina roadblock; lawless Thanksgiving in Imperial Sand Dunes, Calif.

Protecting Arizona's underground wonderland

Arizona State Parks is fighting a proposal resort near Benson, Ariz., which some fear could harm the nearby Kartchner Caverns.

GAO drops a bomb on Yucca Mountain

A General Accounting Office audit recommends that Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham wait several years to make a decision on the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump, until studies are complete and serious questions answered.

A crowded Washington wilderness gets ugly

Activist Martha Hall accuses area outfitters of trashing northern Washington's Pasayten Wilderness, which has been discovered and overrun by recreationists.

Quincy collaboration heads to court

The Quincy Library Group plans a lawsuit to challenge the Sierra Nevada Framework, which the group says has "killed" its own collaborative plan for national forest management.

A price tag for protest

The Oregon Department of Forestry wants to charge protesters for timber that can't be cut in forests such as the Tillamook, where tree-sitting activists have held longtime protests.

Pesky pike persist

Exotic pike have reappeared in California's Lake Davis, just 18 months after the lake was poisoned in a controversial plan, and now the state is considering underwater explosions to keep the pike from heading downstream.

Ridgetop home may be toppled

In Park City, Utah, county planners are fighting to stop Bruce Daley's planned hilltop home, and Daley is fighting back with a lawsuit against Summit County.

Griz numbers a mixed bag

Federal biologists say the threatened Yellowstone grizzly population is healthy and increasing, but conservationists say the bears still face many long-term risks.

Show me the water

The California state assembly says developers will have to prove they have water rights before they receive final approval for new subdivisions.

No go on state land reform

Citing internal disagreement, a coalition has abandoned plans to put an initiative to preserve Arizona state trust lands on the 2002 ballot.

Book Reviews

Tribe's pines fetch clean air credits

London-based Sustainable Forestry Management will get carbon dioxide emissions credits for funding the Flathead Indian Reservation's work replanting ponderosa pines on 250 burned acres of the Montana reservation.

National grasslands up for review

Conservationists say a draft environmental impact statement on Northern Plains grasslands opens up too much land to the oil and gas industry.

Audible biodiversity

The Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology has released a CD called "The Diversity of Animal Sounds," which features the sounds of a variety of creatures from all over the world.

The Buffalo War: a maelstrom of Western issues

Matthew Testa's new documentary, "The Buffalo War," looks from all different sides at the controversial killing of Yellowstone National Park's straying buffalo.

Economics with a heart, but no soul

In their new book, "Post-Cowboy Economics: Pay and Prosperity in the New American West," Univ. of Mont. economists Thomas Michael Power and Richard N. Barrett offer an optimistic but fundamentally flawed view of Montana's economy.

Essays

Cybermapping the West - a new view

A ramble through cyberspace paints an interesting "cybermap" of the West on the Web.

Heard Around the West

Heard around the West

Milk is cool in Idaho; cheese artiste Cosimo Cavallaro's Powell, Wyo., project; suspect caught in manure; disappearing N.M.; Utah photographer Michael Fatali sets fires under Delicate Arch; expensive Aspen babysitting; bear-feeder's car fed on by bears.

Letters

Water is more precious than gas

Good riddance to the sheep

Sheep ranch sympathy misplaced

Time to embrace drip irrigation

Rodeo's virtues

Sharing credit for restoration

Related Stories

'We don't rest ... on economics'

In his own words, activist Bob Decker talks about Montana's environmental groups and the struggle they face in their state.

'We better start moving ahead'

In his own words, Libby, Mont., accountant Wayne Hirst talks about how Montana environmentalists went wrong.

Ranchers' group adopts practical strategy

The Northern Plains Resource Council is unique among Montana environmental groups in that it was founded by cattle ranchers, who still make up half the membership.