Feature

Who will take over the ranch?

As private lands become the new frontier in the West’s wild real estate frenzy, ranchers are turning to land trusts in places like Gunnison, Colo., to find out how to hold on to their land and keep it open and undeveloped

Editor's Note

The great ranch lands sell-off

Environmentalists and ranchers should quit arguing about public-lands grazing and work together with the land trust movement to save the land we all love

Dear Friends

Dear friends

Wallace Stegner Center celebrates 40th birthday of Wilderness Act; Casper Star-Tribune’s Charles Levendosky dies; visitors Stanley Dodson, Dorothy Kehmeier, Jim Low; correction on Pahreah townsite photos

Uncommon Westerners

Connecting Indian Country: Talk-show host Harlan McKosato

New Mexico’s Harlan McKosato sees his radio show, Native America Calling, as an "electronic talking circle" that helps build bridges between cultures

News

California scores a goal for perchlorate cleanup

California decides to set its own new "public health goal" for perchlorate contamination, but critics point out that it is both legally unenforceable and lower than the previous goal

Follow-up

John Kerry vs. Barbara Cubin and Richard Pombo on oil; FBI arrests William Jensen Cottrell for California SUV arson; and Forest Service paid public relations firm $90,000 for "Forests With a Future" campaign and slogan

New Mexicans take a stand against oil and gas

In New Mexico, ranchers like Tweeti Blancett are working with environmentalists to keep oil and gas drillers away from Otero Mesa

Book Reviews

Asbestos beyond Libby city limits

In their new book, An Air That Kills, reporters Andrew Schneider and David McCumber tell the shocking story of how asbestos poisoned Libby, Mont., and continues to harm the nation

Calendar

Living with the wild

In The Raccoon Next Door: Getting Along With Urban Wildlife, wildlife rehabilitation expert Gary Bogue offers helpful advice on how to live with all kinds of wild creatures

Essays

One national park could tell the truth about the West

The West’s endless tug-of-war between scenery and resources is brought into dramatic focus at Colorado’s Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park

Bush is a man of his word: He's audacious, but should that be surprising?

Democrats can learn a thing or two from the way Bush and the conservative Republicans are using political power

Heard Around the West

Heard around the West

Wandering sea lion; off-roading over geysers; Blizzard of 1049; Wyoming’s got money; bowling for meteorites; Lake Mead is shrinking; and controversial books at the public library

Letters

Overpopulation affects everything

Don't blame the immigrants

My father, the kestrel

Pesticides are killing frogs

Related Stories

Not just a ranch: Bucks and acres

Carl Palmer hopes to make his Adobe Ranch in California an economic success to prove that open space can be financially as well as environmentally valuable

Biology: The missing science

Studies by Montana’s Andrew Hansen and Colorado’s Rick Knight offer some of the first scientific evidence that preserving ranch lands provides important benefits to surrounding ecosystems