Certainly the press, other governments and tourists are most aware of the official, elite, corrupt Mexico; the Mexico that won’t allow a poor man a chance; the Mexico behind the sunglasses. I’ve even been told by people, including Mexicans, that this is Mexican culture. But I know that’s not true. There is another Mexico. — […]
Book Reviews
Posted inMarch 12, 2001: Divided Waters
Keeping ranchers’ options open
Among his fellow New Mexico ranchers, Sid Goodloe is known as a contrarian (HCN, 4/15/96: Raising a ranch from the dead). His newest project, the Southern Rockies Agricultural Land Trust, is keeping that reputation intact. Goodloe hopes to convince his neighbors that conservation easements – voluntary legal agreements that prohibit development of private land – […]
Posted inMarch 12, 2001: Divided Waters
Priests preach to the choir: Protect the Columbia
The Roman Catholic Church isn’t traditionally considered the home of radical greens. But 12 bishops from the Pacific Northwest and Canada have jumped into the environmental fray, and in late February, they released a long-awaited and controversial pastoral letter about the Columbia River (HCN, 9/11/00: Holy water). The letter, nourished by three years of discussion […]
Posted inMarch 12, 2001: Divided Waters
Water Watch
Boulder, Colo., residents can now check on the health of their watershed by surfing the Web. The Boulder Area Sustainability Information Network (BASIN) Web site publishes water quality indicators and trends in the Boulder Creek watershed, which provides water for the city of Boulder. The site also includes snowpack information, an air-quality index, and information […]
Posted inMarch 12, 2001: Divided Waters
Land Use Conference
Las Vegas Mayor Oscar B. Goodman, Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo., and author John Maclean will speak to planners, attorneys and developers at the Rocky Mountain Land Use Institute’s Land Use Conference, April 19-20, at the University of Denver. Thirty panels and 100 presenters will cover topics such as Western wildfires, smart growth and regional planning. […]
Posted inFebruary 12, 2001: Mr. Babbitt's wild ride
Easement saves artifacts
Conservation easements usually protect open space on private land (HCN, 2/28/00: Acre by acre: Can land trusts save the West’s disappearing open space?), but a new easement in southwestern Colorado also protects what’s underneath the land. In December, an agreement between landowner Don Dove and the Montezuma Land Conservancy preserved 110 acres of ancestral Puebloan […]
Posted inFebruary 12, 2001: Mr. Babbitt's wild ride
Out of the grave
Presumed dead for nearly two decades, the Mountain Gazette, the rough-cut and barbed-tongued journal of 1970s mountain culture, has been exhumed, resuscitated and, according to its editors, “printed on paper so damned biodegradable … that you can pour milk on it and eat it.” Among its glossy newsstand rivals, the resurrected Gazette looms like a […]
Posted inFebruary 12, 2001: Mr. Babbitt's wild ride
Men without women
“How sad life is, but the saddest thing is to sleep alone even though one has a wife, Luis.”– A tree carving, translated from Spanish in Speaking Through the Aspens You’re walking through an aspen forest and suddenly you see it on a tree trunk – a carving of a woman’s body or a bird, […]
Posted inFebruary 12, 2001: Mr. Babbitt's wild ride
Sex-swappin’ salmon
Puzzling piscine sex reversals have left salmon researchers scratching their heads. A study released by the University of Idaho and Washington State University reported that of the female salmon sampled, 84 percent tested positive for a male genetic marker, suggesting that these females actually began life as males. Sex reversals could hold clues to declining […]
Posted inFebruary 12, 2001: Mr. Babbitt's wild ride
Assessing Sunbelt sprawl
A recent poll found that nearly half of Phoenix’s residents would pack up and leave tomorrow, if given the chance. Two-thirds think the region is doing a “poor” or “fair” job of preserving the desert or open space. With this harsh assessment of the city’s quality of life in mind, a team of university researchers, […]
Posted inJanuary 29, 2001: Power on the loose
Agency will try to track trails
The Bureau of Land Management has a new nationwide strategy for off-highway vehicle management. The plan, released Jan. 19, calls for local environmental analyses of vehicle impacts, saying that some endangered species habitat may need further protection from OHV use. It also broadens BLM’s definition of off-highway vehicles, which will now include snowmobiles, personal watercraft, […]
Posted inJanuary 29, 2001: Power on the loose
X-rated on the rocks
“I am glad I have seen yournakedness;it is beautiful;it will rain from now on.” — Talashimtiwa Hopi Indian from Oraibi, 1920from The Serpent and the Sacred Fire: Fertility Images in Southwest Rock Art The record on rock left by the Southwest’s early people is mostly mystifying. What do those galaxy-like clusters really represent? What are […]
Posted inJanuary 29, 2001: Power on the loose
Beyond the white noise
The environment doesn’t begin as you leave the city – workplaces and neighborhoods are part of it, too. But battles to protect these places, especially those belonging to minority groups, have not often been visible to the public. The 2000 Directory of People of Color Environmental Groups brings these community fights to life, listing the […]
Posted inJanuary 29, 2001: Power on the loose
Tagging a protest
Opponents of a new pass to visit the Red Rock area of Coconino National Forest near Sedona, Ariz., are using a rearview mirror tag to claim exemption from fees. The Forest Service says its fee demonstration program is needed to restore and enhance a scenic treasure, but members of the AZ NoFee Coalition fear “the […]
Posted inJanuary 15, 2001: Plains sense
Lifting the veil of secrecy
Making a Real Killing: Rocky Flats and the Nuclear West, by Len Ackland, The University of New Mexico press. Hardback: $34.95. 308 pages. Most people know that the Cold War spawned a number of nuclear bomb manufacturing facilities in the spacious American West – places like Hanford in eastern Washington state and Rocky Flats just […]
Posted inJanuary 15, 2001: Plains sense
Get artsy in the parks
Over the years, the work of numerous artists has focused the eye of the public on national parks. Thomas Moran’s paintings helped swing the debate for protecting Yellowstone National Park. Ansel Adams’ photographs continue to introduce new generations of Americans to the beauty of Yosemite and Sequoia national parks. And Ann Zwinger’s writings and sketches […]
Posted inJanuary 15, 2001: Plains sense
Straw bales relieve housing crunch
For six years, Red Feather Development Group has been pushing a low-cost solution to the housing crunch on Indian reservations, where extended families often squeeze into tiny government-issue homes. One answer, according to the Bellevue, Wash.-based nonprofit, lies in building houses with bales of straw. The bales are a product of the wheat harvest on […]
Posted inJanuary 15, 2001: Plains sense
Hecho a mano
Hecho a Mano, by James S. Griffith. University of Arizona Press, Tucson. Paperback: $17.95. 104 pages. Driving through Tucson, Ariz., a visitor might not register the ornate front-yard fences and low-rider cars along the city’s palm-lined streets. Yet in the book Hecho a Mano, by folklorist Jim Griffith, what’s everyday comes vividly alive. Griffith takes […]
Posted inDecember 18, 2000: Still here: Can humans help other species defy extinction?
Atomic farmgirl
It was a headline in The Spokesman-Review that informed my family that both the bomb at Alamogordo and the bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki contained plutonium produced at Hanford. That’s how everybody – everybody in the whole world and everybody in our neighborhood – found out what was going on down there: from the […]
Posted inDecember 18, 2000: Still here: Can humans help other species defy extinction?
Agency gets rebuked
Since the late 1980s, scientists have known that more than 100 federal nuclear sites, over half of which lie in the West, will remain toxic forever. The problem is how to manage these former bomb sites for thousands of years. Though the Department of Energy commissioned a National Academy of Sciences study over two years […]