In Montana’s Madison County, Reid Rosenthal uses
conservation easements to help the land — and make his
investors rich
Magazine
May 30, 2005
In Montana’s Madison County, Reid Rosenthal uses conservation easements to help the land — and make his investors rich. Also in this issue: Facing severe budget cuts, the Forest Service is selling off property, and considering closing some recreation sites it considers too expensive to maintain.
Feature
Sidebar
Statistics from the Land Trust Alliance, The Nature
Conservancy, U.S. Natural Resources Conservation Service
A proposal to overhaul the tax rules around conservation
easements has private-land conservationists worried, but recent
financial scandals show the need for some reform
Conservation easements are considered the domain of the
wealthy, but in Colorado, tax credits are helping farmers like
Dorothy and Norman Kehmeier preserve their family’s
land.
Conservation easements are often a closed book if you're
not one deal makers. Here are a few tips on how to examine a
conservation easement in your area.
Editor's Note
The time is ripe for moderate reform of the conservation
easement system
Uncommon Westerners
Montana paleoecologist Cathy Whitlock studies the recent
geological past and looks for clues to the future of the
West
Essays
When it comes to perfect starry nights, the West is always
the winner
Book Reviews
In Decade of the Wolf: Returning the Wolf to
Yellowstone, biologist Douglas Smith and nature writer
Gary Ferguson seek to separate myth from reality in the long and
turbulent saga of the wolf
In his essay collection Dragons in
Paradise, George Sibley reminisces about his years in the
funky mountain ski town of Crested Butte, Colorado
The Singing Life of Birds by Donald
Kroodsma explores the varieties of birdsong, and even includes a CD
of nearly 100 songs
In Little Things in a Big Country,
Hannah Hinchman shares a beautifully hand-drawn, hand-lettered
journal of her adventures in Montana with her dog, Sisu
In Wild Echoes, Charles Bergman
describes his up-close experiences with endangered creatures that
range from black-footed ferrets and California condors to the
manatees of Florida
Writers on the Range
Why do newcomers to the West need to build such obnoxious
entrance gates to their brand-new ranchettes?
Heard Around the West
Snowmobiling sans snow; Las Vegas "condiments"; wacky
weather in Washington; burritos, bears and school lockdowns;
wrapping glaciers in Switzerland; Salazar takes on the Family; good
manners ease highway screw-up
Dear Friends
Welcome to summer interns Tony Barboza and Patrick
Farrell; visitors; Grist wins Web site award
News
Facing severe budget cuts, the Forest Service is selling
off property, and considering closing some recreation sites it
considers too expensive to maintain
Fish farms spread sea lice to wild salmon; Intermountain
Rural Electric Association votes to exempt itself from
Colorado’s renewable energy standard; New Mexico rancher Kit
Laney is leaving the country
Some of the residents of the Moab, Utah, area are losing
patience with out-of-control off-highway recreation, and looking to
the BLM to bring things under control
In the North Fruita Desert of western Colorado, the BLM
has come up with a plan to enable motorized and non-motorized
recreationists to share the outdoors
Fish populations are plunging in the California Delta even
as the CalFed Bay-Delta Authority considers exporting yet more
water
The Utah Recreational Land Exchange Act would give the BLM
some prime recreation areas in the southeastern part of the state
in exchange for oil-rich land in the Uintah Basin
The National Park Service has agreed to explore opening
some of the parks to mountain biking
Archaeologists are worried that a plan to upgrade the
16-mile gravel road to Chaco Canyon in New Mexico could lead to
more tourism and possibly harm the park’s fragile
ruins
The U.S. Treasury Department has given $50 million in tax
credits to Ecotrust to help depressed Northwestern timber towns
carry out sustainable logging
Letters
Reid Rosenthal responds to HCN's story on conservation
easements.
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