The Southwest Idaho Mountain Biking Association believes mountain bikers should pay to use trails on public lands. The group wants Idaho to enact a $10 annual fee to maintain trails, create new ones and develop trail-etiquette education. Cyclists, who would register any bike that they ride off-road, could influence how funds are spent through advisory […]
Pay to play
Posted inOctober 17, 1994: As elections near, green hopes wilt
Celebrate the West
Growth, politics and the future of the region will come under scrutiny at a “Celebrate the West” conference in Jackson, Wyo., Nov. 5-7. The conference honors Western historian and author Alvin M. Josephy Jr., who has helped Indians establish their voice in the telling of Western history. The gathering at the National Wildlife Art Museum […]
Posted inOctober 17, 1994: As elections near, green hopes wilt
Witness
-Each species is a masterpiece,” says biologist and writer E.O. Wilson in his introduction to Witness: Endangered Species of North America, a large-format book of 200 stunning black-and-white and color portraits. Photographers Susan Middleton and David Littschwager collaborated with the California Academy of Sciences and Chronicle Books to produce this collection, to try to focus […]
Posted inOctober 17, 1994: As elections near, green hopes wilt
Come into the forest
-Nature is not only more complex than we think; it is even more complex than we can think,” said biologist Frank Egler, whose observation is one of dozens of quotations gracing a new, permanent exhibit at the High Desert Museum in Bend, Ore. Called The Changing Forest, the exhibit features ceiling-high trees and indoor and […]
Posted inOctober 17, 1994: As elections near, green hopes wilt
Uncontrollable coyote
For Wayne Grady, it was on a cold, clear night in eastern Ontario, Canada, when he heard coyotes howling: “The sounds seemed to tremble on the verge of language, to be, almost literally, the voice of the wilderness.” This recollection introduces The World of the Coyote, a glossy book about the canine’s habits and history. […]
Posted inOctober 17, 1994: As elections near, green hopes wilt
Wilderness Act at 30
Is there a difference between a wilderness in a national park and a wilderness in a national forest? Why are cows and sheep allowed to graze in wilderness? Are airports permitted? The Wilderness Act Handbook, reissued by The Wilderness Society, aims to answer these and other questions about this country’s 96 million acre National Wilderness […]
Posted inOctober 17, 1994: As elections near, green hopes wilt
Green Classifieds
If you’re a conservationist – budding, seasoned amateur or salaried professional – you may want to check out Earth Work, published 11 times a year by the Student Conservation Association. Every other issue is labeled JobScan and contains nationwide environmental job listings ranging from seasonal internships to career opportunities. Other issues contain interviews with conservation […]
Posted inOctober 17, 1994: As elections near, green hopes wilt
Timber industry takes a stand
Stung by the Sierra’s Club’s book, Clearcut, the timber industry has struck back with a glossy 28-page rebuttal. Closer Look: An On-the-Ground Investigation of the Sierra Club’s Book, Clearcut, makes the case that clearcutting can improve forest health. The Sierra Club’s 1993 book presented aerial photographs of nearly 100 denuded sites to represent the industry’s […]
Posted inOctober 17, 1994: As elections near, green hopes wilt
Organizing citizens for the next 20 years
-Where do citizen activists go from here?” asks the 20th anniversary issue of The Workbook, published by the Albuquerque-based Southwest Research and Information Center. Varying answers come from 19 veteran activists whose essays appear in this special 47-page issue. In New Mexico, Maria Varela says empowering land-based communities to develop their economies is the answer […]
Posted inOctober 17, 1994: As elections near, green hopes wilt
Salmon win again (in court)
Although endangered Snake River salmon appear to be losing their battle with extinction, they continue to win in court. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Sept. 9 that the Northwest Power Planning Council’s plan for restoring Snake River salmon gives too much to industrial interests and too little to tribal and state biologists, reports […]
Posted inOctober 17, 1994: As elections near, green hopes wilt
For sale: low mileage bomb factory
For sale: low mileage bomb factory Without much effort, a used-car and scrap dealer in Pocatello, Idaho, got his hands on $10 million worth of equipment needed to build nuclear bombs. In June 1993, a Department of Energy lab sold dealer Tom Johansen most of the major components to make bomb-grade uranium from spent nuclear […]
Posted inOctober 17, 1994: As elections near, green hopes wilt
Reality intrudes on Big Rock Candy Mountain
The bluebirds no longer sing by the lemonade springs: The Big Rock Candy Mountain Resort on the Sevier River near Marysvale, Utah, is bankrupt. The sulphur- and chocolate-colored mountain, celebrated in a song written by Harry McClintock and sung by Burl Ives, attracted visitors from around the world who during the 1950s drank its mineral-rich […]
Posted inOctober 17, 1994: As elections near, green hopes wilt
Babbitt helps a river
Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt has declared an 11-mile stretch of southern Oregon’s Klamath River a National Scenic River. Babbitt’s decision deals a death blow to the city of Klamath Falls’ proposed Salt Caves hydroelectric project, reports The Oregonian. Oregon citizens voted six years ago to include the free-flowing portion of the river in the state’s […]
Posted inOctober 17, 1994: As elections near, green hopes wilt
When are trapped wolves “taken’?
The Bozeman-based Predator Project has asked the federal Animal Damage Control agency to stop trapping coyotes after a gray wolf was found dead in a trap on a Montana ranch. The wolf, which had wandered from a pack in Glacier National Park, died from overheating in late August. Wolves in Montana are protected under the […]
Posted inOctober 17, 1994: As elections near, green hopes wilt
Open sesame, grazing boards
The public must now be allowed, if not welcomed, to sit in on Utah’s grazing advisory board meetings. In late June, the state attorney general’s office issued a decision that forces all five of Utah’s BLM advisory boards to open their doors, even to activists such as grazing watchdog Scott Groene of the Southern Utah […]
Posted inOctober 17, 1994: As elections near, green hopes wilt
A sunny future for nuclear test site?
The Nevada Test Site, home to nuclear weapons testing for more than 40 years, may have a brighter future. Clear skies and high insolation – the amount of solar radiation available at ground level – make the test site one of the best places in North America for capturing solar energy, according to a feasibility […]
Posted inOctober 17, 1994: As elections near, green hopes wilt
Parks give free rides
While the Clinton administration proposes charging people more to visit national parks, the National Park Service continues to lose more than $100 million a year in fees it fails to collect. According to an Interior Department audit, the agency took in $68 million in gate and campground fees at the nation’s 367 parks, monuments and […]
Posted inOctober 17, 1994: As elections near, green hopes wilt
A wilderness rates one official boss
A wilderness once run by six national forests will get its own supervisor, budget and district managers – just like a national forest. By centralizing management of Idaho’s 2.3 million acre Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness, the Forest Service hopes to save on costs and improve services, says John Twiss, the agency’s national leader […]
Posted inOctober 17, 1994: As elections near, green hopes wilt
Bambi takes a hunter safety course
Hey kids, remember when Bambi’s mother got blown away by the hunter? Tom Storm does, and because movies like Bambi have given hunters a bad name, he wants to teach people who don’t hunt all about the role hunters play caring for wildlife. In his book Stormy and The New West, Storm shows Stormy the […]
Posted inOctober 17, 1994: As elections near, green hopes wilt
A creeping plague of crickets is hitched to everything in the world
There have been a few times when my love of nature has been put to the test: a July 4 snowstorm that trapped me in a tent for three days, a two-month bout with poison oak, a gnat attack in Utah. The Mormon cricket plague was no exception. The outbreak began in 1981 in Dinosaur […]