Feature

The Big Buyout

Tough economics, drought, and increasing clashes with other public-lands users are leading some ranchers to consider taking the "golden saddle" – a check from conservationists in exchange for their grazing permits

Editor's Note

Grazing buyouts help land and ranchers

Some Western ranchers, fed up with economic problems and other conflicts, are handing over their grazing allotments to conservation groups in exchange for a healthy check

Dear Friends

Dear friends

Tragedy in Paonia; visitors; "Starting West" conference at Stanford discusses frustration; clarification from BLM; Happy 35th birthday, HCN

Uncommon Westerners

Saving Maidu culture, one seedling at a time

Lorena Gorbet, a Mountain Maidu Indian, has dedicated her life to saving her tribal culture through forest management in the Feather River area of Northern California

News

The last happy agency biologist — and other April Foolery

Biologist Mark Intyme is marking time; "Termoonator" takes on wolves; coorections; "Million Bush March" and other oddities

Developer under fire for destroying desert

Developer George Johnson is being sued by the state of Arizona for major violations of environmental laws, committed in the early stages of his planned La Osa Ranch development

Ski areas' 'green' image not backed by action

Two researchers say that the "Sustainable Slopes" program, touted by the National Ski Areas Association as a sign of the industry’s environmental responsibility, is little more than "greenwashing"

Rock jocks fight a mining company

Resolution Copper Company is trying to obtain a land swap in order to mine at Arizona’s Oak Flat campground, a popular rock-climbing spot

The public pays to keep water in a river

Three important "takings" lawsuits claim farmers should be compensated when water is withheld from irrigators in order to help endangered species during times of drought

Who owns Klamath water — farmers or the public?

A judge rules that Pacific Coast fishermen can intervene as a third party in a lawsuit between Klamath River Basin farmers and the federal government

Book Reviews

Showdown over the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and its people

Caribou Rising by Rick Bass is an impassioned plea on behalf of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the Gwich’in people who have hunted caribou there for thousands of years

The best thing since dams: pouring water underground

In Common Waters, Diverging Streams William Blomquist, Edella Schlager, and Tanya Heikkila argue on behalf of "conjunctive management" – coordinating the use of surface water with underground aquifers

Santa Fe Hispanic Culture: Preserving Identity in a Tourist Town

Santa Fe Hispanic Culture: Preserving Identity in a Tourist Town by Andrew Leo Lovato explores the way Santa Fe, N.M., both preserves and exploits its colorful past

Diminished Democracy: From Membership to Management in American Civic Life

In Diminished Democracy, Harvard University professor Theda Skocpol considers the decline of volunteerism in American life, and what it means for the nation’s democracy

Common Southwestern Native Plants: An Identification Guide

In Common Southwestern Plants, Jack L. Carter, Martha A. Carter and Donna J. Stevens have created a user-friendly botanical guide

Essays

Do you want fries with that mustang?

A rider in the federal spending bill will end a 34-year-old ban on selling wild horses for slaughter

The Far East yearns for the wild West

The Wild West lives on in a distinctly Eastern way at Western Village in Imaichi, Japan, sister city of Rapid City, S.D.

Heard Around the West

Heard around the West

Only resident of Monowi, Neb., loves it, but other Great Plains towns struggle to attract people; "no intelligent life out here" is right; no plastic surgery for Hollywood pets; Glenwood Springs, Colo., cops catch Denver bad guy; "low-cow" Internet in Hot

Letters

Bush, Cheney, and the Three Stooges

Thumbs up on Yellowstone snowmobiles

Private environmentalism: alive and well

Centigrade is fine, thanks

Watson is selling lies

Related Stories

Buyouts by the numbers

The various grazing buyout proposals offer different amounts to ranchers in exchange for retiring their grazing permits

One BLM district grabs the bull by the horns

On the Upper Deschutes area of Oregon, the Bureau of Land Management is working to move cows off the public land

Public-lands ranchers: Should you trust this man?

Paul Larmer interviews longtime activist Andy Kerr, director of the National Public Lands Grazing Campaign, about grazing buyouts and the future of public-lands ranching