In a Dark Wood: The Fight Over Forests and the Rising Tyranny of Ecology, by Alston Chase, Houghton Mifflin, $29.95. Review by Alan Pistorius Alston Chase’s new book sets out to chronicle the continuing fight between the timber industry and environmentalists over old-growth forest in the Pacific Northwest and to determine why, in his view, […]
It’s Chase who’s lost in the dark wood
Posted inMay 27, 1996: Utah ushers its frogs toward oblivion
Heard Around the West
Ah, spring. Tender new buds of May. Raging rivers. Baseball. Senior prom. And, in at least one Western county, an explosion in teen pregnancies. “Going to the prom does not mean that you have to have sex,” Terrie Guthrie of Campbell County, Wyoming’s Planned Approach to Community Health coalition, pointed out to the Associated Press. […]
Posted inMay 27, 1996: Utah ushers its frogs toward oblivion
There’s plenty of money to study Utah’s game
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story: Utah ushers its frogs toward oblivion Officials in Utah’s Division of Wildlife Resources barely had time to note the news that Dick Carter was mothballing his Utah Wilderness Association before the perennial thorn in their sides was back demanding action on another issue. Carter spent […]
Posted inMay 27, 1996: Utah ushers its frogs toward oblivion
Frogs: The ultimate indicator species
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story: Utah ushers its frogs toward oblivion Native frog populations are plummeting all over the world. No one knows exactly why, but there are six prominent possibilities. Destruction of wetlands is one, contamination of water supplies by biocides, pollutants, and acid rain another. A third is […]
Posted inMay 27, 1996: Utah ushers its frogs toward oblivion
Utah ushers its frogs toward oblivion
In the middle of the last century, thirsty pioneers traveling along the Humboldt Trail through Utah knew how to find potable water: If there were snakes and frogs in a spring or pool, it was safe to drink. This method never failed them. When Brigham Young and his plucky tribe of Mormon refugees from persecution […]
Posted inMay 13, 1996: Howdy, neighbor!
‘Boom’ potential at Rocky Flats
-Boom” potential at Rocky Flats When the FBI raided and closed the Rocky Flats nuclear facility just outside Denver, Colo., in 1989, agents found illegal emissions of radioactive materials. But more problems were on the way. Sam Cole of Physicians For Social Responsibility says that since then, plant managers have been “spinning their wheels,” and […]
Posted inMay 13, 1996: Howdy, neighbor!
Ellensburg wins back its beauty
-Hideous,” “grotesque” and “like massive spikes in a sci-fi movie,” were some of the kinder phrases residents of Ellensburg, Wash., employed to describe an addition to their community. The addition consisted of 12 power poles, 110 feet high, erected by Central Washington University through the center of town. The looming power poles spurred the formation […]
Posted inMay 13, 1996: Howdy, neighbor!
Contradictions on the Columbia
One environmentalist called it “a case of schizophrenia’: Oregon officials recently extended Boeing Aviation’s permit to divert water from the Columbia River even though the state has spent more than $1 billion augmenting the river’s flow to restore salmon. Environmentalists hadn’t paid much attention to Boeing’s permits in the past because the aerospace firm never […]
Posted inMay 13, 1996: Howdy, neighbor!
Heard Around the West
It’s not unusual to find strange items along road shoulders, but David Shiffler’s discovery along a New Mexico road last October deserves special mention. While taking a pee break, the 3-year-old toddler decided to do a little excavation with his yellow Tonka backhoe. According to The Denver Post, he came back to the car with […]
Posted inMay 13, 1996: Howdy, neighbor!
A sampling of the West’s collaborative efforts
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories: Everyone helps a California forest – except the Forest Service Collaboration groups in the West now number in the hundreds, and range from informal grassroots organizations to government-mandated advisory councils. A cross-section follows: * The Willapa Alliance is a private, nonprofit organization started […]
Posted inMay 13, 1996: Howdy, neighbor!
Everyone helps a California forest – except the Forest Service
Note: this article is one of several feature stories in a special issue about collaboration in the West. QUINCY, Calif. – In the context of the burned and dying forests of the West, the Quincy Library Group was supposed to be a good news story. Loggers and environmentalists sat down in the local public library […]
Posted inMay 13, 1996: Howdy, neighbor!
View 6 of the grizzly bear controversy
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, Bringing back grizzlies splits environmentalists, in a special issue about collaboration in the West. Keith Hammer heads the Swan View Coalition. He lives in Bigfork, Mont., near Kalispell. What hit me hardest was that their agreement says the forest plan is adequate and […]
Posted inMay 13, 1996: Howdy, neighbor!
View 5 of the grizzly bear controversy
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, Bringing back grizzlies splits environmentalists, in a special issue about collaboration in the West. Michael Scott recently became program director of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. Before that, he was with The Wilderness Society. He lives in Bozeman. There is a lot of overlap […]
Posted inMay 13, 1996: Howdy, neighbor!
View 4 of the grizzly bear controversy
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, Bringing back grizzlies splits environmentalists, in a special issue about collaboration in the West. John McCarthy is conservation director of the Idaho Conservation League. He lives in Boise. The local citizen management committee is the main stumbling block. Everyone except Defenders and NWF […]
Posted inMay 13, 1996: Howdy, neighbor!
View 3 of the grizzly bear controversy
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, Bringing back grizzlies splits environmentalists, in a special issue about collaboration in the West. Seth Diamond is with the Intermountain Forest Industry Association. He has a degree in anthropology and lives in Missoula. The trouble is that in the past grizzlies were used […]
Posted inMay 13, 1996: Howdy, neighbor!
View 2 of the grizzly bear controvery
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, Bringing back grizzlies splits environmentalists, in a special issue about collaboration in the West. Hank Fischer runs the Northern Rockies’ office of Defenders of Wildlife. He lives in Missoula, Mont. I think the timber people share some of our frustrations with this endless […]
Posted inMay 13, 1996: Howdy, neighbor!
Tom France’s view of the grizzly bear controversy
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, Bringing back grizzlies splits environmentalists, in a special issue about collaboration in the West. Tom France is an attorney with the National Wildlife Federation. He lives in Missoula, Mont. He is a board member of High Country News. It was at the Interagency […]
Posted inMay 13, 1996: Howdy, neighbor!
Bringing back grizzlies splits environmentalists
Note: this article is one of several feature stories in a special issue about collaboration in the West. It seems a deal made in heaven. The timber industry in the Northern Rockies and two major environmental groups have agreed to back the restoring of grizzly bears to central Idaho and western Montana. The proposal is […]
Posted inMay 13, 1996: Howdy, neighbor!
A progressive commissioner takes the heat
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, A Colorado county tries a novel approach: work the system, in a special issue about collaboration. The last hurdle rancher Tom Colbert has to clear as county commissioner may be his toughest. The commissioners are working to complete a county-wide comprehensive land-use plan […]
Posted inMay 13, 1996: Howdy, neighbor!
A Colorado county tries a novel approach: work the system
Note: this article is one of several feature stories in a special issue about collaboration in the West. One day in the winter of 1992, officials from Montezuma County in southwestern Colorado did what many of the West’s county officials were doing: They attended a public-lands conference in Steamboat Springs. Amid the Sturm und Drang […]