History takes Oregon State for a ride
Reformation in the Vatican of sawlog forestry
Posted inNovember 13, 1995: Seeing the forest and the trees
Northern Arizona U. looks back, moves forward
Presettlement forests provide map for management
Posted inNovember 13, 1995: Seeing the forest and the trees
Critics say an Idaho think tank could be more scholarly
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, Two views of forest health at the University of Idaho, in a special issue about the West’s forestry schools. Controversy comes with the territory in Jay O’Laughlin’s job. He directs the University of Idaho’s Policy Analysis Group, which is charged with explaining natural […]
Posted inNovember 13, 1995: Seeing the forest and the trees
‘Anything you say about a whole forest is wrong’
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, Two views of forest health at the University of Idaho, in a special issue about the West’s forestry schools. Art Partridge is walking through the tall firs of the Coeur d’Alene National Forest in northern Idaho. Pausing occasionally to keep tabs on his […]
Posted inNovember 13, 1995: Seeing the forest and the trees
Two views of forest health at the University of Idaho
Are the forests sick or well?
Posted inNovember 13, 1995: Seeing the forest and the trees
Environmental paradigm spurs collaborative research
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, The end of certainty, in a special issue about the West’s forestry schools. For many years, the federal government spent more money studying the breeding and production of corn than it did studying forests. Yale Forestry Professor John Gordon speculates this was related to […]
Posted inNovember 13, 1995: Seeing the forest and the trees
The end of certainty
Western universities learn there is more to forestry than chainsaws
Posted inOctober 30, 1995: Nevada's ugly tug-of war
Economic tools obscure key questions
Dear HCN, As Colorado State Professor John Loomis shows, contingent valuation can be a useful tool to demonstrate how much we value “goods’ like clean air or dam-free rivers (HCN, 9/18/95). Since the valuation we ordinarily look to is that established by parties in mutually beneficial transactions, goods that are not bought and sold may […]
Posted inOctober 30, 1995: Nevada's ugly tug-of war
A cheap shot
Dear HCN, High Country News took a cheap shot to deliver a hot opening line in your article about troubles in the Endangered Species Coalition (HCN, 10/16/95). You would get the idea that the National Audubon Society just woke up one day and fired the coalition staff out of pique. Not true. We were forced […]
Posted inOctober 30, 1995: Nevada's ugly tug-of war
Don’t forget cows
Dear HCN, Ray Ring’s otherwise excellent article about whirling disease and trout in torment (HCN, 9/18/95) missed a critical part of the fisheries picture in the arid West: livestock. One of the key reasons why the Idaho Watersheds Project and eight regional environmental groups filed a listing petition for the desert redband trout with the […]
Posted inOctober 30, 1995: Nevada's ugly tug-of war
A bogus claim
Dear HCN, I was very pleased to see the article about the efforts of Skip Edwards in the Westwater Wilderness area (HCN, 10/16/95). Our ranch, the Mountain Island Ranch, is the only BLM grazing permittee on the east shore of the Colorado River through the Westwater Canyon. Skip and I have had our differences of […]
Posted inOctober 30, 1995: Nevada's ugly tug-of war
Thanks to all who helped save Mono Lake
Dear HCN, Regarding the anonymous letter, “Where Credit is Due” (HCN, 10/2/95), I’d like to clarify the litigative history that led to the “saving” of Mono Lake. As the letter correctly noted, the first limitation of water diversions from the Mono Basin was the product of lawsuits filed in 1984 by California Trout. The Mono […]
Posted inOctober 30, 1995: Nevada's ugly tug-of war
That waving wheat is nothing but a clearcut
Virtually all of agriculture is an attempt to artificially prolong the first stage of succession. The grasses we have domesticated … grow quickly and concentrate energy on producing seed. They store carbohydrates in these seeds, precisely why we value them as food. From an ecological sense, then, agriculture is a sustained catastrophe. It is the […]
Posted inOctober 30, 1995: Nevada's ugly tug-of war
Water and faith
WATER AND FAITH “How do we live faithfully in an arid land?” Rural congregations will gather in Twin Falls, Idaho, to reflect on this question at the eighth meeting of the Forum on Church and Land, Water, Power and Place, Nov. 8-11. Among the speakers will be University of Colorado law professor Charles Wilkinson, who […]
Posted inOctober 30, 1995: Nevada's ugly tug-of war
Smog talk
SMOG TALK The crystal-clear skies of the sparsely populated Colorado Plateau have become increasingly muddied by power plants, mining operations, wood-burning stoves, and even automobile smog from Los Angeles. From Nov. 27 to Dec. 7, the public will have a chance to comment on five proposed solutions to the problem at meetings in eight Western […]
Posted inOctober 30, 1995: Nevada's ugly tug-of war
No profit in Kaiparowits Mine
NO PROFIT IN KAIPAROWITS MINE A company trying to open a coal mine on southern Utah’s Kaiparowits Plateau had better take a second look at its numbers, concludes a recent study by the Grand Canyon Trust. The report says the high cost of trucking coal over 225 miles of roads to rail transfer sites will […]
Posted inOctober 30, 1995: Nevada's ugly tug-of war
Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
WHO’S AFRAID OF THE BIG BAD WOLF? Ranchers concerned about wolves killing livestock should buy a new piece of equipment – a video camera. That’s the advice in Dealing with Wolves on the Ranch, a pamphlet from the Montana Stockgrowers Association that explains the legal do’s and don’ts of dealing with endangered wolves in Idaho, […]
Posted inOctober 30, 1995: Nevada's ugly tug-of war
Deals and delays for Dixie
After a five-year Forest Service study found that cattle have eaten 94 percent of their allotted grass on the east slope of Boulder Mountain in southern Utah, Dixie National Forest ranger Marvin Turner made a decision. On June 1, Turner told cattlemen to reduce their grazing levels by 42 percent. Ranchers cried foul, and three […]
Posted inOctober 30, 1995: Nevada's ugly tug-of war
Grizzly plan sent back to drawing board
A recent federal court ruling may delay plans to declare grizzly recovery in Yellowstone a success. U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman ruled Oct. 4 that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s 1993 Grizzly Bear Recovery Plan lacks an adequate yardstick for measuring recovery of the species, which gained federal protection in 1975. Citing the plan’s […]
Posted inOctober 30, 1995: Nevada's ugly tug-of war
Logging deal struck in Southwest
Some timber cutting has resumed in the Southwest’s national forests, Christmas trees and all. An Oct. 19 agreement reached between environmentalists and the Forest Service frees up about 30 million board-feet of timber for harvesting. The negotiations came after a federal judge in August halted logging on national forests in Arizona and New Mexico until […]