A small band of enthusiasts wants to re-engineer Western waterways with the help of a humble, hardworking professional: the beaver.
Visitors from underground
VISITORS FROM UNDERGROUNDPat Jablonsky and Bill Yett of nearby Delta stopped in to our Paonia, Colo., office to renew their subscription and tell us about their recent trip to New Mexico’s Fort Stanton-Snowy River Cave National Conservation Area. They showed us astonishing photos of the Snowy River passage, named for the miles-long formation of bright…
Natural comfort
Finding death’s middle ground
Rise up swinging
Northern Cheyenne boxer Duran “Junior” Caferro takes on challenges inside the ring and out
Rebooting Urban Watersheds
Activists restore blighted Bay Area creeks — and impoverished communities
Old trees, new ideas, and humility
Old Growth in a New World:A Pacific Northwest Icon ReexaminedThomas A. Spies and Sally L. Duncan, eds.344 pages, softcover, $32.00.Island Press, 2009. Many of this book’s 28 authors are the usual suspects — Jerry Franklin, Jack Ward Thomas, Tom Spies and other experts on the old-growth forests of the Pacific Northwest. In Old Growth in…
Forestry from the inside
The Forester’s Log: Musings from the WoodsMary Stuever264 pages, softcover: $24.95.University of New Mexico Press, 2009. Forester Mary Stuever started writing newspaper columns “to share my love for forests and my passion for my chosen profession.” It’s a profession that has changed dramatically during the last 25 years, and in her new collection, The Forester’s…
California prepares for the next burn
Officials — and homeowners — start to accept the inevitability of wildfire
States rev up ORV rules
Western legislation aims to curb off-roading problems
Distributed Generation Is The Answer
I live out in the Mojave Desert near where a bunch of large utility-scale solar thermal power plants are being planned on public land (HCN, 5/11/09). Thousands of acres of desert tortoise habitat will be scraped, and the company is trying to buy ranchers and farmers out for their water rights, because this power plant…
It’s All Somebody’s Backyard
Regarding the editor’s note, “For the love of wasteland,” make no mistake about it: Conservation alone is no silver-bullet solution (HCN, 5/11/09). Yes, conservation is often overlooked in favor of supply-side solutions. Yes, huge gains can be made through energy-efficiency programs. I fully agree and support energy conservation efforts — in fact, some conservation should…
A Purpose-Driven Life
The excerpt from Lisa Jones’ book Broken is a story with a lot of pathos, a very human look at a world that most of us have little understanding of (HCN, 4/27/09). Lisa’s appreciation for the Arapaho culture and her openness to the values and rhythms of life of Daniel and his peers allows us…
Of Ring and Rush
Ray Ring in “Sci-fi Conservation” writes that “the enviros are trying to establish a planetwide buffer zone around a few vulnerable species that have limited ranges” (HCN, 5/25/09). A lot depends on the words you choose, and it’s good that HCN is trying to be balanced. But this particular Ray Ring statement sounds like it…
“Rodeo Kabuki”
“The Rise of the Minotaur” is a well-written article by Craig Childs on the bull-riding phenomenon (HCN, 5/25/09). The subtitle is misleading, though: “Bull riding explodes from its Western roots into a modern spectacle.” Bull riding was never part of life on a working ranch. It’s an event created specifically for the rodeo arena, the…
Voyage of the Dammed
Nature’s engineers — and environmental heroes — make a comeback
The river wilder
Just about every watershed in the West has streams and rivers in need of restoration. Both rural and urban waterways are damaged — dried by drought, plugged by dams, polluted by livestock or factories, channeled off to farms and cities, or diverted into culverts and covered by cement. Here in western Colorado, the Gunnison River…