While Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt considers greater
protection for Oregon's Steens Mountain, local ranchers and
environmentalists argue over whether the land should become a
cow-free national monument or a conservation area that would allow
grazing.
Magazine
November 22, 1999
While Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt considers greater protection for Oregon's Steens Mountain, local ranchers and environmentalists argue over whether the land should become a cow-free national monument or a conservation area that would allow grazing.
Feature
Superintendent Jerry Meredith has a management plan for
Utah's new Grand Staircase-Escalante Nat'l Monument, the first park
to be managed by BLM rather than Park Service, and many
environmentalists and some locals praise the job he's
doing.
Sidebar
Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt is pushing for a new and
expanded National Conservation Area along the banks of the Missouri
River Breaks, a wild and scenic river corridor.
Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt would like to see a
national monument for the Arizona Strip, a little-known region of
the Shivwits Plateau northwest of the Grand Canyon.
In his own words, environmentalist lawyer Andy Kerr argues
for an end to grazing on Steens Mountain.
In her own words, Sierra Club volunteer Jill Workman says
that grazing need not be banned on Steens Mountain.
In his own words, Bill Marlett of the Oregon Natural
Desert Association says that Steens Mountain needs all the
protection it can get.
In his own words, rancher Fred Otley defends ranchers'
stewardship on Steens Mountain.
In his own words, ranch manager Stacy Davies says that
multiple use is best for Steens Mountain.
Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt has his eye on a
half-dozen other BLM territories in the West that he is considering
for greater protection before he leaves office.
A time line gives high points in the history of the
Antiquities Act, which since 1906 has been used to designate many
national parks and monuments.
Book Reviews
A new report, "Air Quality Concerns Related to Snowmobile
Usage," says snowmobiles produce nearly all the air pollution in
Yellowstone National Park.
The Conservation Technology Support Program is offering
Geographic Information Systems grants to environmental
groups.
A report by Public Employees for Environmental
Responsibility titled "Attacks on Federal Employees" documents a
rising tide of violence against Forest Service and BLM
staffers.
Helen Carlson's book, "Nevada Place Names," is a
delightful dictionary that untangles the stories behind the state's
place names.
A new report, "A Study of Management and Administration:
The Bureau of Indian Affairs," gives the beleaguered BIA advice
about how to get itself back on track.
Nov. 12 was the grand opening of Kartchner Caverns State
Park near Tucson, Ariz.
A conference on tailings and mine waste is being held Jan.
23-26 at Colorado State University.
The Great Salt Lake Issues Forum will be held Feb. 25-26
by Friends of Great Salt Lake.
Friends of the Wild Swan in Montana are selling a calendar
with favorite cartoons of Elmer Sprunger.
Perspective
In Washington, D.C., Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt
battles Western Republicans over the use of the 1906 Antiquities
Act to preserve Western land for the public.
News
A land swap set up by Plum Creek Timber Co., the Forest
Service and eight environmental groups will protect some of the
last old growth remaining in Washington's Gifford Pinchot National
Forest.
Citing a climate of threatening, "irresponsible
fed-bashing" that made it almost impossible for her to do her job,
supervisor Gloria Flora resigns from her job overseeing Nevada's
Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest.
A new hunters' group called the Friends of the Northern
Yellowstone Elk Herd is blaming wolves for the recent drop in the
population of the park's northern elk herd.
Chronic wasting disease strikes elk in Mont.; Columbia
River's Hanford Reach now part of Saddle Mtn. wildlife refuge;
Puget Sound bull trout listed as endangered; a bill is passed to
give $3 billion for land purchases and wildlife conservation
programs.
As many as 50,000 protesters are expected at the World
Trade Organization conference in Seattle, Wash., demanding that
global trade rules must take into account environmental, labor,
safety and human rights protections.
The Park Service says that a new Las Vegas airport,
planned for a site 10 miles from California's Mojave National
Preserve, will ruin the "solace and quiet" of the desert.
Environmentalists, federal agencies and area Indian tribes
are pushing to decommission 90-year-old Fossil Creek Dam and its
two small hydropower plants near Strawberry, Ariz.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is the
little-known agency that handles hydroelectric project
licensing.
Heard Around the West
Cherry boom in Asia; controversy over parade shootouts in
Idaho; whale radio; sewage blamed for Yosemite rock falls; hunter
shoots llama; hunters, cell phones and lions; "disrobe for
disarmament" in San Francisco; Wyo. Gov. Geringer defends
rich.
Dear Friends
A celebration of Gudy Gaskill, who jumpstarted the
building of the Colorado Trail; corrections; adventures of a paddle
and its return.
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