Radmilla Cody and Geraldine Laughter discuss domestic violence and the challenges for enforcement and victim support services on the Navajo Nation. Last year, President Obama signed the Tribal Law and Order Act, which could help improve enforcement and support for domestic violence victims on reservations around the country.
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Posted inMarch 7, 2011: High Tension
An Unusual Miss Navajo
Grand Falls, ArizonaRadmilla Cody knows the way home. It’s not an easy journey. The dirt roads are canoe-shaped and gouged by rain. They curl around hills and plunge into deep draws, finally bringing us to the family homestead near Grand Falls, on the Navajo Reservation. Cody grew up on these lonesome sage flats. Her Navajo […]
Posted inMarch 7, 2011: High Tension
Life after lava
Biological diversity thrives around Mount St. Helens
Posted inMarch 7, 2011: High Tension
Bigger isn’t always better
The Bureau of Land Management’s Ray Brady says “there is no way a state like California is going to meet its goal of generating 33 percent of its electricity from renewable sources without utility-scale projects (HCN, 2/7/2011).” From my experience, this just isn’t true, and I’m getting tired of seeing it become a mantra. Since […]
Posted inMarch 7, 2011: High Tension
Petroleum High: good or evil?
I appreciated the HCN article on the Taft Oil Technology Academy, even though the tone seemed to “warn” of indoctrination rather than celebrate a creative and effective educational strategy (HCN, 2/7/11). As a past elementary and high school teacher and school counselor, I know of many reliable sources and studies that indicate that the majority […]
Posted inMarch 7, 2011: High Tension
Thirteen ways of looking at a mushroom cloud
Friendly Fallout 1953Ann Ronald248 pages, hardcover: $24.95.University of Nevada Press, 2010.Friendly Fallout 1953, Nevada writer Ann Ronald’s latest exploration of place, is itself an experiment in fission — the literary kind. Set at Nevada’s Proving Ground, the book splits the telling of history among 12 fictional characters — plus Ronald herself — who witness the […]
Posted inMarch 7, 2011: High Tension
Regaining identity through restoration
Charles Wilkinson’s new book describes how a tribe “terminated” by the federal government fought to regain its identity.
Posted inMarch 7, 2011: High Tension
Crowdsourcing helps tackle environmental injustice in California’s Imperial Valley
The border city of Calexico, Calif. — population 27,000; 95 percent Latino; 25 percent poverty rate — is the kind of place where environmental laws are enforced last, if at all. But a local task force of residents, academics, and environment and health officials hope to change that. Last year, they launched the Imperial Visions […]
Posted inMarch 7, 2011: High Tension
Grant received, grant given
The Fund for Investigative Journalism recently awarded a $5,000 grant to HCN Contributing Editor Matt Jenkins, to support a reporting project over the next several months. Since 1969, the Fund has given out more than $1.5 million in grants to freelance reporters, book authors and small publications. They say ’tis better to give than to […]
Posted inFebruary 21, 2011: Palin, politics, and predator control
Western wildlife commissions on the chopping block
In Washington and New Mexico, state wildlife commissions could become a thing of the past. As part of their budget-trimming measures, both states’ legislatures are considering bills that would do away with the commissions’ power to set regulations and policy for managing fish and wildlife. In theory, wildlife commissions, found in every Western state, allow […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Wild lives and wildlife
IDAHO Some poachers don’t understand the meaning of the word, or maybe they just can’t accept that they can be caught in the act. Rex Rammell, a Republican who recently ran for governor of Idaho, was stopped by a state Fish and Game agent last November just as he was hauling out an elk he’d […]
Posted inFebruary 21, 2011: Palin, politics, and predator control
In Navajoland, a contentious water deal divides the tribe
The Navajo Nation sprawls across about one-tenth of the nearly quarter-million-square-mile Colorado River drainage. But ever since the seven states that depend on the river met to divide its water 88 years ago, the tribe has been pushed into the shadows of river politics. About 40 percent of the reservation’s roughly 170,000 residents still don’t […]
Posted inFebruary 21, 2011: Palin, politics, and predator control
Jeff Rice on documenting the West in sound
Hear the sounds Jeff Rice collects around the West and learn about why he does it. You can catch High Country Views approximately every other week. Available via our RSS feed, and for download now through iTunes.
Posted inMarch 7, 2011: High Tension
Educate on!
I graduated from Greenville High School in 1997, and I wish the natural resources program had been offered back then (HCN, 2/7/11). We need more of this type of education in our schools — and we need it soon. The more we get kids involved in caring for and studying natural resources, the brighter the […]
Posted inMarch 7, 2011: High Tension
A rose by any other name …
I’m curious as to why HCN‘s editors printed Craig Childs’ ghostwalking essay (HCN, 2/21/2011). By his own admission, Mr. Childs’ escapade took place in an “off-limits” area, where access was permitted “as long as nobody sees you.” Deliberately entering it was trespassing, pure and simple. Romanticizing Mr. Childs’ blatant disregard for the rights of others […]
Posted inMarch 7, 2011: High Tension
Predator control’s unsustainable roots
Tracy Ross’ story was a good first look at the politics of predator control (HCN, 2/21/2011). One thing this article missed, however, is the fact that politics also drives the overexploitation of moose and caribou by the hunting industry. Game managers are under intense pressure to allow unsustainable harvests. Add to the mix a for-profit […]
Posted inMarch 7, 2011: High Tension
More hunters, more dollars
As an avid hunter and wildlife enthusiast, I read your recent feature on Alaska’s predator control program with keen interest (HCN, 2/21/2011). Surprisingly, neither writer seems to have grasped the dirty little secret that underlies modern day wildlife management: It’s not about wildlife, it’s about hunter opportunity. Put simply, anything that negatively impacts huntable populations […]
Posted inFebruary 21, 2011: Palin, politics, and predator control
Jeff Rice collects nature’s noises
Some people collect butterflies. Others amass dolls or antique cars. Armed with a microphone and recorder, Jeff Rice chases the West’s natural sounds — from the hooting of owls to the buzzing of Great Basin rattlesnakes. A relative newcomer to nature field recording, Rice worked in audio production for about 15 years. As a radio […]
Posted inFebruary 21, 2011: Palin, politics, and predator control
Arizona’s Fossil Creek gets restored — and loved to death
Deep in Arizona’s Mazatzal Mountains, there’s a 16-mile-long undulating channel of emerald-green travertine. Clear 75-degree water bubbles from the ground and flows down it at a steady 45 cubic feet per second. It’s home to a thriving native fish population, rare and endangered aquatic and terrestrial creatures, and towering canopies of cottonwood, ash and sycamore […]