Magazine
June 24, 1996
Catron County, N.M., the home of the county independence movement, is a study of contrasts - its people heavily dependent on the federal government and its land and rivers dying.
Feature
Catron County, N.M., the home of the county independence
movement, is a study of contrasts - its people heavily dependent on
the federal government and its land and rivers dying.
Essays
A river trip through Utah's Canyonlands National Park
leads a winter-naturalist to muse about the geologic chaos inside
the park's human-imposed boundaries.
Dear Friends
HCN's summer break, odds and ends, summer interns Greg
Hanscom and Jared Farmer, Paul Larmer visits Utah rancher Hardy
Redd.
News
Conservationist Jon Marvel bid against rancher Mike Ward
over a 10-year lease, raising the fee to $12,050, then folded and
declared victory.
The Southwest's drought brings an early and ferocious
forest fire season.
A federal judge rules that Devils Tower National Monument
cannot prohibit commercial climbing in June to accommodate Native
American religious practices at the tower.
Colorado Gov. Roy Romer drafts a ballot initiative to
force the state land board to consider long-term stewardship and
protection of state-owned lands.
Forest Service Range Conservationist Chuck Oliver is
physically assaulted when he tries to attend a meeting in Eagle,
Ariz., between public-lands ranchers and wise-use attorney Karen
Budd-Falen.
The ski industry seeks to slip a bill through Congress
that would preserve the current low Forest Service fees resorts pay
and let them renew 40-year leases without environmental
review.
The Sierra Club elects 23-year-old Adam Werbach as its new
president.
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife's plan to
build the $4 million Grandy Creek steelhead hatchery faces stiff
opposition from fishing groups, scientists and
conservationists.
A survey in Montana shows that predators account for just
2.2 percent of all cattle losses in the state in 1995.
Idaho opponents assail Mountain Home Air Force Base's
latest training-range expansion plans.
The polluting, coal-fired Hayden Power Plant in
northeastern Colorado agrees to reform, to activists'
delight.
Defenders of Wildlife, which compensates ranchers for
livestock killed by wolves, says it cannot compensate for pets
killed by wolves.
The Grand Canyon Visibility Transport Commission issues an
ambitious proposed air-quality cleanup blueprint for the Colorado
Plateau.
A pact between Plum Creek Timber Co., Montana state and
federal agencies, to preserve some land for grizzlies falters when
Plum Creek decides to sell some of the land to
developers.
Book Reviews
Daniel Botkin's book, "Our Natural History: the Lessons of
Lewis and Clark," describes the Western wilderness the explorers
saw in 1804-1806 and compares it to the West of today.
Summo USA Corp. plans to mine 34 million pounds of copper
each year for 10 years in the Lisbon Valley southeast of Moab,
Utah.
Transportation Secretary Federico Peûa proposes a ban
on commercial scenic overflights in Colorado's Rocky Mountain
National Park.
The Prairie Plains Resource Institute in Nebraska seeks to
preserve and celebrate the prairie.
The Colorado Division of Wildlife's guide, "Developing
With Wildlife in Mind," hopes to educate people about the possible
conflicts with wildlife in suburbia.
A report, "Unindicted Co-Conspirator," says that since the
Forest Service disbanded its special timber-theft task force last
year, investigations of large-scale timber stealing have ground to
a halt.
A review of Tom Wolf's "Colorado's Sangre de Cristo
Mountains."
Heard Around the West
High Country Shopper, Rocky Mountain News scorns rural
Colorado cows, low wages for Wyoming women, husband wife team of
wilderness rangers needs money in Montana, quips from Myles
Rademan, New York Times' Freemen blooper.
Letters
Sidebar
Catron County Attorney Jim Catron, in his own words, on
the "rural Western resistance to the federal empire."
An anonymous Catron County businessperson, in his words,
on the tensions between factions in the county.
Forest Service District Ranger Mike Gardner, in his own
words, on dealing with the tensions in Catron County.
Psychologist Melinda Garcia, in her own words, on working
with people in Catron County's "war zone."
Reserve, N.M., Dr. Mark Unverzagt, in his own words, on
the often overlooked middle ground in Catron County.
