In this issue, we examine habitat connectivity through the eyes of two very different California residents: P-22, the mountain lion that found an unlikely home in LA’s Griffith Park, and Miguel Ordeñana, who has spent his life studying urban wildlife. Can a wildlife crossing help P-22 and LA’s other wild inhabitants? We ponder how place names connect human beings to landscape and consider how Russia’s war in Ukraine might affect the Western U.S. Recently appointed BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning talks about her beleaguered agency, which has too often failed to protect the lands it manages. A California sheriff’s enthusiasm for policing environmental crimes sparks accusations of xenophobia from Hmong Americans. A Cherokee professor dissects the popular series ‘Yellowstone,’ and Vauhini Vara talks about her novel, ‘The Immortal King Rao.’ A young writer questions parenthood amid climate change, and a runner seeks access to public spaces in developed neighborhoods. This issue welcomes poetry back to HCN ’s pages and features a stunning portfolio of Richard Misrach’s extraordinary new photographs.
Our latest survey and our new poetry editor
The readers have spoken, and our poetry editor speaks.
The lion king of Los Angeles
After Miguel Ordeñana discovered mountain lion P-22 in urban LA, he became a key advocate for habitat connectivity, which is essential for the species’ survival in Southern California.
A culture of connectivity
The work ahead will require more collaboration and less divisiveness.
A terrible lighthouse, swift treasure hunters, and a paranormal ghost town
Mishaps and mayhem from around the region.
The revenge of Big Tech
When tech companies rule the world, what could go wrong?
Letters to the editor, May 2022
Comments from readers.
From river bottom to meadow
A runner in Ojai, California, considers how access to public space isn’t necessarily a given.
How place names impact the way we see landscape
Western landscapes and their names are stratified with personal memories, ancestral teachings, mythic events and colonial disturbances.
Don’t judge the negative
The weird wonderful world of the negative image.
Why is this California sheriff suddenly interested in ‘environmental crimes?’
Law enforcement takes center stage in Siskiyou County’s fight over who can, and can’t, use land and water.
Russia’s war reverberates in the West
Putin’s military moves — and the globe’s response to them — have unexpected consequences for the region.
Park Service’s midnight-hour rule change benefits Telecom
The eliminated policy was designed to keep the public in the loop about new cell towers.
On ‘Yellowstone,’ and the white desire to control the narrative
We don’t share land here.
What does it mean to live well on an overheating planet?
A walk through the Quinault rainforest leads to a cascade of questions.
Untitled #5, 1998
After Agnes Martin
Cows, coal and climate change: A Q&A with the new BLM director
Tracy Stone-Manning discusses how the federal agency sees conservation, the climate crisis and the Indigenous history of public lands.
There are millions of acres of ‘failing’ rangelands, data shows
54 million acres of federal land managed by the Bureau of Land Management aren’t meeting the agency’s own land-health standards.