The conversations we don’t have about safety outdoors
History instructs Black Americans to fear the outdoors. But creating new memories outside will inform our future.
Federal plan makes steep Colorado River water cuts to Arizona, California and Nevada
The Bureau of Reclamation’s final environmental review leaves the door open for states to reach an agreement on how to share the water — and for legal battles.
‘Everything is in dialogue’
Two editors have a conversation about our special conversations issue.
Deb Haaland’s vision for New Mexico comes from tradition
A Q&A with the state’s likely next governor about tribal sovereignty and politics.
Can the last casino in Primm, Nevada, save a desert community?
A last-minute deal is another bet on the town’s unlikely survival.
What’s destroying Utah’s monuments
The administration wants to open 3 million acres to mining claims and oil and gas leasing at the expense of the landscape.
Reporting on the West is a team effort
HCN gets a new team member and a first union contract.
A longtime donor gives back
Author and naturalist Audrey Benedict helps support science through good reporting.
Tribally contested Badger Mountain solar project canceled by developer
Avangrid withdrew its application from the Washington state permitting process following years of objections and delays.
A ban on chainsaws in wilderness is performative, not practical
An experienced trail crew leader argues that, in today’s forests, the rigidity of the regulation buries what it’s designed to protect.
The conflict over permanent climbing anchors in wilderness
Climbers concerned about safety are pitted against wilderness advocates worried about overcrowding and unfettered bolting.
Pueblo leaders, New Mexico lawmakers speak out to protect Chaco Canyon
Officials call push to remove an oil and gas buffer around the culturally critical monument ‘an absolute gut punch.’
I used to ignore prediction markets. Then I learned people were betting on wildfires
My story on prediction market wildfire wagers exposed the gamification of natural disasters.
Alaska Native communities prepare for man camps driven by new mining boom
How one village established a Native-led sexual assault response team to help address the oncoming chaotic boomtown atmosphere.
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In This Issue
August 2026: The Conversations Issue
Our August issue celebrates “Conversations” — exploring a variety of communication, from the unspoken interactions of flowers and fungi to the human need to discuss the complicated issues we face today. We also examine what happens when communication fails, and words are used to misinform…
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Water
The clock is ticking for New Mexico to cut Rio Grande water use
Collapsing mountains in Alaska are causing massive tsunamis
Can restoration save the Delta smelt?
Wildlife
Feds transfer grizzly bear management to states
How a Utah Republican’s quiet battle for hunting access undercut LandBack hopes
The Klamath Tribes couldn’t get federal dollars for salmon. Then the Yurok stepped in
Public Lands
A new section of the billion-dollar border wall in Arizona is bent out of shape
Bears Ears cuts also end first-of-its-kind tribal land commission
The rules for grazing on 155 million acres of public lands are getting overhauled
Indigenous Affairs
Treat water like family, not profit
The facade of the Red Wind commune
War, climate change and AI are at stake at the 2026 UN Indigenous forum
Communities
The Chinese immigrants trafficked on New Mexico’s weed farms
Let’s go in on the American dream, together
Meet the students graduating from Montana’s smallest classes
Books
On Mount Shasta, a photographic record outlasts living memory
What can we learn from salt lakes?
Badger signs: An essay from Terry Tempest Williams’ new book ‘The Glorians’
In the News
The West’s forever fire season
How climate change makes wildfire more likely to happen all year round.