As cities swallow countyside, two upcoming conferences will consider ways to protect open and agricultural land from urban growth. Montanans meet in Helena Nov. 20-21 for Big Sky or Big Sprawl? Montana at the Crossroads: Montana’s First Statewide Summit on Growth. Call or write AERO, 25 S. Ewing, Suite 214, Helena, MT 59601 (406/443-7272), or […]
Big Sky or Big Sprawl?
Posted inNovember 9, 1998: Grizzly war
Endangered Mexico
Living in Mexico City – a place that has already suffered a kind of ecological collapse – has convinced me that the most crucial environmental struggle in the coming decades will be providing water, food and clean air, and ensuring basic human health in a world where resources are more and more limited. The most […]
Posted inNovember 9, 1998: Grizzly war
Spotted owls vs. jobs?
Does environmental protection really cause timber workers to lose their jobs? An article by University of Wisconsin sociologist Bill Freudenburg says no. His peer-reviewed study tracks employment numbers through three flashpoints of the modern environmental movement: 1964, when the Wilderness Act became law; the advent of Earth Day in 1970; and the northern spotted owl […]
Posted inNovember 9, 1998: Grizzly war
Trading up to salmon power
The Emerald People’s Utility District near Eugene, Ore., says it will provide “green power” to its customers. The district has agreed to pay 75 percent more to a new partnership between the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) and a trio of environmental groups formed to encourage energy production that doesn’t harm air quality or salmon. The […]
Posted inNovember 9, 1998: Grizzly war
Picturing Native American Culture
If you watched any television in the 1970s, you’ll recall the “Keep America Beautiful” campaign featuring Iron Eyes Cody – the Indian actor whose image, with a tear rolling down his wrinkled cheek, persuaded us to put litter in its place. His teary eye taught our society more than was ever intended – it helped […]
Posted inNovember 9, 1998: Grizzly war
The lynx: To list or not to list?
You may be seeing more of the elusive Canada lynx if conservationists have their way. Groups such as the Biodiversity Legal Foundation have long argued that this cousin of the bobcat needs protection under the Endangered Species Act. Last spring, a federal judge ordered the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to protect the lynx. The […]
Posted inNovember 9, 1998: Grizzly war
Erosion danger fans flames
In Washington state, Patricia Hoffman’s community group, Save Our Summers, successfully led the fight to end bluegrass-field burning that was choking the city of Spokane (HCN, 12/22/97). Now she’s launched another air-clearing campaign, this time against wheat-stubble burning. “This is the first year that we haven’t had plumes rising in Spokane County,” Hoffman says. “What […]
Posted inNovember 9, 1998: Grizzly war
Lynx stops timber sale
The Canada lynx – proposed but not yet listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act – has stopped a controversial timber sale in southern Wyoming’s Medicine Bow National Forest. Deputy Regional Forester Tom Thompson overturned an earlier decision to allow the 1,473-acre Tie Camp timber sale within a dense forest of lodgepole pine, spruce […]
Posted inNovember 9, 1998: Grizzly war
Subdivisions loom over the Sawtooths
The Forest Service has spent about $50 million over the last 25 years to protect the Sawtooth National Recreation Area in central Idaho from the spread of subdivisions. Its work is about 90 percent complete – conservation easements protect most private land – but unless the Forest Service can work out a last-minute deal, rancher […]
Posted inNovember 9, 1998: Grizzly war
The 105th Congress didn’t come completely clean
At the last minute, out of the quagmire of the 105th Congress came word that the federal government is plunking down a $40 million down payment on the sprawling Baca Ranch in New Mexico (HCN, 8/3/98). In a Congress with few environmental victories, environmentalists were happy to put this one in the win column: “A […]
Posted inNovember 9, 1998: Grizzly war
Who controls the Sandias?
When families in Albuquerque want to get away from it all, they need only look east, to the Sandia Mountains, where foothills begin just beyond the city limits. So residents and elected officials were shocked when a federal judge issued a ruling in July that was widely interpreted as handing over much of the western […]
Posted inNovember 9, 1998: Grizzly war
Poacher gets trapped
When the authorities cracked an extensive Utah cougar-poaching ring this fall, they got help from an unlikely source: the poachers themselves. The hunters, unaware that their guide didn’t have the proper permits, documented their illegal hunts in photographs, videotapes and boastful magazine articles. In mid-September, Colorado hunting guide Samuel Sickels pleaded guilty to wanton destruction […]
Posted inNovember 9, 1998: Grizzly war
The Wayward West
Chalk one up for the Coeur d’Alene Tribe in northern Idaho. U.S. District Court Judge Edward Lodge rejected the state’s attempt to stop the tribe from taking control of the southern third of Lake Coeur d’Alene and part of the St. Joe River, reports the Spokane, Wash., Spokesman Review. The decision came on the eve […]
Posted inNovember 9, 1998: Grizzly war
A parade becomes a memorial after a murder
Laramie, Wyoming, wrestles with the hate in its midst when a gay student is beaten to death.
Posted inNovember 9, 1998: Grizzly war
Heard around the West
Western signs continue to puzzle people. Wandering around California’s Death Valley recently, Mark V. Sheehan of Olympia, Wash., came across one for “Death Valley Health Center,” which seemed to cast doubt on their services. And Jeffrey Dickemann, who lives in Richmond, Calif., says he couldn’t figure out what the “it” meant in a huge sign […]
Posted inNovember 9, 1998: Grizzly war
Arson isn’t the only crime on Vail Mountain
Fires set atop Colorado’s Vail Mountain have unleashed a storm of condemnation, a media feeding frenzy, and a no-holds-barred federal investigation. But the powerful public outrage provoked by the arson has obscured more important events occurring on the backside of Vail Mountain. To my way of thinking, there was just as much to be outraged […]
Posted inNovember 9, 1998: Grizzly war
A Montana writer’s real-life tales of bears and terror
Joe Heimer had the sow grizzly’s upper lip clenched in his fist, shoving and squeezing as hard as he could. The bear had knocked him flat on his back in the deep, sticky snow, and she was standing on his mauled legs, trying to shake his hand loose and sink her jagged teeth into his […]
Posted inNovember 9, 1998: Grizzly war
Gutsy scientists stand up to bureaucratic juggernaut
Science Under Siege: The Politicians’ War on Nature and Truth By Todd Wilkinson, Johnson Books, Boulder, Colo., 1998. Paperback, $18. 364 pages. The struggle to protect the American landscape is often portrayed as a boxing match between powerful corporations and gritty environmentalists. That simplistic picture leaves out a less-heralded yet equally critical player: the federal […]
Posted inNovember 9, 1998: Grizzly war
Vail fires outrage community
VAIL, Colo. – Vail Resorts has never enjoyed so much support. The early-morning fires that destroyed cafeterias and other ski facilities atop Vail Mountain, causing $12 million in damage, have transformed the nation’s largest ski area into a victim. The Earth Liberation Front – Internet sites identify it as a splinter group of Earth First! […]
Posted inNovember 9, 1998: Grizzly war
Even in the remote West, growth happens
STEHEKIN, Wash. – Tucked into a narrow mountain valley on the shore of Lake Chelan is a village so small it barely qualifies for the state map. A single phone serves its 70 residents, no roads lead here and only a ferry links Stehekin with the nearest grocery store in the small city of Chelan, […]