High Country News February 04, 2008
Feature
Unnatural Preservation
Public-land managers in the era of global warming face uncomfortable choices: Do they intervene to protect dying plants and animals, or stand back and let this new version of “nature” take its course?
Editor's Note
Planning for uncertainty
A Phoenix symposium on dealing with drought and global warming echoes the larger uncertainties facing public-land and national park managers throughout the West.
Two Weeks in the West
Two weeks in the West
A flurry of end-of-year easements saves lots of lovely landscapes; heli-skiing wins in Utah; snow-lovers help starving Colorado deer; a possible ceasefire on the Klamath; and bark beetles are destroying Colorado’s lodgepole pines.
Uncommon Westerners
The Chaparralian
Richard Halsey says Southern California’s chaparral is not to blame for the fires that scorch the region every year.
News
Hold the salt
The largest wetland restoration project on the West Coast tackles the tidal marshes of San Francisco Bay.
Nevada stakes its salmon claim
Nevada sportsmen, tribes and environmentalists ask the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission not to renew licenses for Hells Canyon’s dams until Idaho Power makes it possible for salmon to survive its dams.
Book Reviews
Die with me
Three new books about the West’s Indian wars – Ned Blackhawk’s Violence Over the Land, Kingsley Bray’s Crazy Horse: A Lakota Life, and Robert W. Larson’s Gall: Lakota War Chief – seem to romanticize a violent past.
Essays
A bad idea hits the gas pumps
Dustin Heron Urban has declared war on the little black stickers at gas stations that announce the availability of ethanol.
Time to call the gas industry’s bluff
Randy Udall says Colorado needs to act now to collect severance taxes from the natural gas companies that are making a fortune from the state.
Standing outside, late, in a charcoal forest
Heard Around the West
Heard Around the West
Jim Stiles asks about perfect moments; rent-a-pet; Douglas Bruce behaves like a jerk; Forest Service meeting gets nasty in Montana.
