Note: this article in one of several feature stories in a special issue about the West’s land grant universities and their extension programs. Carrington, N.D. – Half of all North Dakotans huddle in the fertile, prosperous Red River Valley, a stone’s throw from Minnesota. But John Gardner happily does his agricultural research in central North […]
Feature
Posted inMarch 18, 1996: What does the West need to know?
What does the West need to know?
Note: this article in one of several feature stories in a special issue about the West’s land grant universities and their extension programs. In a burst of energy early this century, land-grant universities sent extension agents to America’s rural counties. Their mission: to modernize and civilize those counties by teaching the latest in breeding cows, […]
Posted inMarch 18, 1996: What does the West need to know?
Playing politics or helping the range?
Note: this article in one of several feature stories in a special issue about the West’s land grant universities and their extension programs. Back in 1978, ranchers around the West felt the first tremors of grazing reform. Under legal pressure from environmentalists, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management found much of its rangeland in bad […]
Posted inMarch 4, 1996: Who owns these bones?
Who owns these bones?
Tucson, Ariz. – The television’s flickering light reveals salmon-colored femurs on card tables, mastodon skulls on a flowered bedcover, dinosaur eggs atop the TV. Japheth Boyce is on the phone, dealing. “Yes … $2,000 … I just can’t go any lower … Well, what can you trade me? … Room 169, Ramada Inn, tomorrow 7 […]
Posted inFebruary 19, 1996: Can a Colorado ski county say 'Enough is enough'?
Eagle County balks at fourth mega-resort
EAGLE, Colo. – Thirteen years ago, Fred Kummer’s dream of building a mega-ski resort outside this quiet Colorado town seemed like money in the bank. The wealthy developer had won the approval of Eagle County and the Forest Service, despite the opposition of a pesky group of locals. The construction industry was poised to throw […]
Posted inFebruary 5, 1996: Lack of enchantment: Santa Fe's boom goes flat
Lack of enchantment
Santa Fe’s boom goes flat
Posted inJanuary 22, 1996: At Hanford, the real estate is hot
At Hanford, the real estate is hot
To become a Yakima Nation warrior, a young man had to run from the top of Rattlesnake Mountain to the Columbia River and back to the mountain top. That meant dropping 2,400 feet to the valley floor, sprinting 10 miles to the water, and then returning to climb this rise, which looks like a crumpled […]
Posted inDecember 25, 1995: Utah hearings misfire
Utah hearings misfire
Unidentified speaker: What I would like to do is have a political (poll) … and just let everybody express what they can’t express because of time limits; so until that red light goes off, (inaudible) make noise and … The crowd, chanting: 5.7, 5.7, 5.7, 5.7, 5.7, – Official transcript, Salt Lake City Wilderness Hearing, […]
Posted inDecember 25, 1995: Utah hearings misfire
Congress weighs the fate of Utah’s wild lands
(Note: this article accompanies another feature story in this issue, Utah hearings misfire.) When Utah’s congressional delegation announced almost a year ago that it would introduce a bill designating BLM wilderness, environmentalists in the state were shocked. They knew they faced a potentially disastrous alignment of political planets: Republican majorities in both houses of Congress, […]
Posted inDecember 11, 1995: Hunting: Its place in the West comes under attack
Unarmed but dangerous critics close in on hunting
Lee Metzgar took up hunting as a youngster, as soon as he could handle a rifle. At first he hunted mostly birds; then he moved west to teach ecology at the University of Montana and, as he phrases it, his hunting got serious. For the next 22 years, stalking in the Rockies, Metzgar bagged deer, […]
Posted inNovember 27, 1995: Saving the ranch
Saving the ranch
Can private conservation stave off ski-town sprawl?
Posted inNovember 13, 1995: Seeing the forest and the trees
The end of certainty
Western universities learn there is more to forestry than chainsaws
Posted inNovember 13, 1995: Seeing the forest and the trees
Two views of forest health at the University of Idaho
Are the forests sick or well?
Posted inNovember 13, 1995: Seeing the forest and the trees
Northern Arizona U. looks back, moves forward
Presettlement forests provide map for management
Posted inNovember 13, 1995: Seeing the forest and the trees
Reformation in the Vatican of sawlog forestry
History takes Oregon State for a ride
Posted inNovember 13, 1995: Seeing the forest and the trees
The ax falls at the University of Washington
Environmental institute is chopped; other programs cut
Posted inNovember 13, 1995: Seeing the forest and the trees
A new breed of academic at Colorado State
Note: this story is one of several feature articles in a special issue about the West’s forestry schools. Fort Collins, Colo.- At 6:38 a.m., Rick Knight is happily installed in his campus office, propelling himself about at high velocity on a chair with well-greased rollers. He drums out memos on his computer, organizes slides for […]
Posted inOctober 30, 1995: Nevada's ugly tug-of war
Nevada’s ugly tug-of-war
A visit to the heart of the Sagebrush Rebellion
Posted inOctober 16, 1995: In the heart of the New West, the sheep win one
In the heart of the New West, the sheep win one
CHAMA VALLEY, N.M. – Even as this high and stormy valley goes the way of the changing West, its course remains eccentric, defined by cross-cultural grudges. Agricultural land is going fast as middle-class Anglos convert ranches to cabin subdivisions or resorts, but the Jicarilla Apaches are also buying up land to add to their reservation. […]
Posted inOctober 16, 1995: In the heart of the New West, the sheep win one
To save a Utah canyon, a BLM ranger quits and turns activist
Floating past cottonwood trees and tamarisk just before dusk, Skip Edwards deftly keeps his raft within earshot of ours so he can pummel us with facts about the 1964 Wilderness Act. But around the next bend, the former Bureau of Land Management river ranger falls silent and points to a massive red and orange sandstone […]