Give and Take Inside this issue of High Country News, you’ll find a flier for our newest book, called Give and Take: How the Clinton Administration’s Public Lands Offensive Transformed the American West. It pulls together our best coverage of the national monument spree engineered by Clinton and his Interior secretary, Bruce Babbitt, along with […]
Departments
Posted inFebruary 16, 2004: Courting Disaster
Mining may no longer be king of the mountain
Court ruling gives land managers power to say ‘no’ to mining companies
Posted inFebruary 16, 2004: Courting Disaster
Ethanol takes off in the West
But is it a wonder fuel — or an energy-losing proposition?
Posted inFebruary 16, 2004: Courting Disaster
Solving the puzzle of chronic wasting disease: Veterinarian Beth Williams
LARAMIE, WYOMING — Stacks of histopathologies — gray folders filled with the tissue of dead animals — litter the floor of Dr. Beth Williams’ office at the University of Wyoming’s State Veterinary Lab in Laramie. Crowded into the office with a computer and a microscope table, they leave little room for Williams herself. The morbid […]
Posted inFebruary 16, 2004: Courting Disaster
Nation’s premier environmental group is target of a takeover
Last year, over 750,000 people joined or renewed their membership in the Sierra Club, presumably because they believe in its historic mission to protect America’s public lands and wilderness for future generations. John Muir and a small band of conservationists founded the Club in 1892, and it’s been working for more than a century to […]
Posted inFebruary 16, 2004: Courting Disaster
Why I’m running: Immigration is the environmental issue
Because I believe that environmental organizations have ducked the immigration-population issue too long, I am running for the board of directors of the Sierra Club. I am not part of a slate; I represent only myself and the issues I care deeply about. One of the most important challenges of public policy is to recognize […]
Posted inFebruary 16, 2004: Courting Disaster
Heard around the West
UTAH Some people in rural subdivisions worship the wandering moose on their doorstep; others go for their guns. Jack Fenton, a worshipper in Summit County, says he was thrilled when a yearling moose moseyed up to his front door to nibble on a wreath. But his neighbor shot and killed the moose — and also […]
Posted inFebruary 2, 2004: Mending the Nets
Would quotas save the seas, or just big business?
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Mending the Nets.” Far from the high seas, a storm of controversy is raging over a tool that some say is the solution to a chaotic, ecologically damaging system of fisheries management — but that others say could send small-boat owners under. Currently, fishermen […]
Posted inFebruary 2, 2004: Mending the Nets
Follow-up
The Forest Service is selling its final management plan for California’s Giant Sequoia National Monument as a compromise, but not all environmentalists are buying it (HCN, 6/9/03: Giant sequoias could get the ax). The plan would allow logging on 10,000 of the monument’s 327,000 acres in order to control future wildfires. Chad Hanson of the […]
Posted inFebruary 2, 2004: Mending the Nets
Indian poll power
How many American Indian voters does it take to elect an official? The answer should matter to every candidate in this election year, since American Indian votes could swing elections in districts throughout Montana, South Dakota, New Mexico, Nevada and Arizona. NativeVote 2004, spearheaded by the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), an organization of […]
Posted inFebruary 2, 2004: Mending the Nets
Calendar
The 22nd Annual Salmonid Restoration Conference, “Collaborative Watershed Efforts for Salmonid Recovery,” will be held in Davis, Calif., March 17-20. Workshops, field tours and technical sessions will focus on topics affecting recovery efforts for salmon and steelhead and associated ecosystems locally, regionally, and globally. www.calsalmon.org 707-223-1770 The Society of Petroleum Engineers International Conference on Health, […]
Posted inFebruary 2, 2004: Mending the Nets
Restoration evolution
“Ecological restoration” has a good ring to it. So good, in fact, that the two words are used by everyone from the environmentalists at The Nature Conservancy to the heads of America’s biggest corporations. While conservation groups look to restoration as a way to hasten the recovery of native ecosystems harmed by agriculture or industry, […]
Posted inFebruary 2, 2004: Mending the Nets
Renewable energy made simple
For most people, living with the energy supplied by Mother Nature is more noble aspiration than practical reality. But thanks to Rex Ewing’s new book, Power With Nature: Solar and Wind Energy Demystified, everyone who embraces renewable energy in theory but not in practice, is now officially out of excuses. Ewing tackles a complex, technical […]
Posted inFebruary 2, 2004: Mending the Nets
Take the initiative
Conservationists should support the Owyhee Initiative, the compromise management plan for more than 3 million wild acres of southwestern Idaho (HCN, 12/8/04: Riding the middle path). If the wildly divergent interest groups that developed the initiative can hold together, Idaho Republican Sen. Mike Crapo promises to shepherd the plan through Congress this year. Idaho’s Owyhee […]
Posted inFebruary 2, 2004: Mending the Nets
Questioning the New World Order
“The Gear Biz” by Hal Clifford (HCN, 10/27/03: The Gear Biz) acknowledged the deleterious effects of NAFTA and the WTO on U.S. manufacturing jobs, but failed to provide the perspective of U.S. workers put out of work by such policies. What do the Navajos who used to work in the Osprey textile factory have to […]
Posted inFebruary 2, 2004: Mending the Nets
Extinction is forever
I was very moved by Ben Long’s essay on the impending extinction of Montana’s sturgeon (HCN, 9/29/03: Extinction — by the clock). His piece captured in a few words the finality of the extinction of species that link modern man to prehistory. I was reminded of the evocative words of William Beebe (1906): “The beauty […]
Posted inFebruary 2, 2004: Mending the Nets
Immigration reform from Washington, DC
Bush’s reform policy would give employers willing workers — and workers a temporary stay in the U.S.
Posted inFebruary 2, 2004: Mending the Nets
Wilderness areas for the ocean
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Mending the Nets.” In the absence of good science about how much fishing a healthy ocean can handle, some fishermen and many environmentalists say a cautious approach is best. They want to place specific swaths of the sea off-limits to fishermen. These “no-take marine […]
Posted inFebruary 2, 2004: Mending the Nets
Uranium mill or dump?
Locals hope to stop a Utah mill from finding new work
Posted inFebruary 2, 2004: Mending the Nets
A new breed of marketers gives fishing towns a leg up
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Mending the Nets.” COOS BAY, Ore. — Abandoned fish-processing plants cling to the harbor’s edge in this town of 15,000 along the Oregon coast. Less than 20 years ago, there were nine places where local fishermen could sell their fish. Now there are four. […]