Dear HCN, I fell asleep in my overstuffed chair in front of the TV the other night. Suddenly, gunfire broke loose on the street outside my door and I was snapped into full alert. I leaped to my feet and grabbed my trusty Benjamin air rifle and gave it a couple of pumps. Thinking it […]
Oh, what a war on the West!
Posted inOctober 3, 1994: Subdividing the desert: Should there be a vote?
Leopold floats us to an understanding
A View of the River Luna B. Leopold. Harvard University Press, 1994. 298 pages. $39.95 plus $3.50 postage and shipping; Customer Service Dept., Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. 02138 (800/448-2242). Review by C.L. Rawlins Anyone concerned with flowing water – river rats, lawyers, architects, irrigators, fly fishers and land managers – will learn to love […]
Posted inOctober 3, 1994: Subdividing the desert: Should there be a vote?
Evolving wetlands
-Change in the West: The Evolution of the Watershed Approach” is the title of the sixth annual conference of the Colorado Riparian Association, Oct. 5-7 in Alamosa, Colo. Representatives from federal agencies, The Wilderness Society, The Nature Conservancy and Western universities as well as local ranchers will talk about shifting demands on riparian areas, case […]
Posted inOctober 3, 1994: Subdividing the desert: Should there be a vote?
Peak writing experience
Ten Native American writers from around the country will read from their work and participate in panel discussions Oct. 7-9 in the mountain town of Telluride, Colo. The Native American Writers Forum will take up the appropriation of Native American lore by non-Indian writers and how Native American literature and tribal oral histories can be […]
Posted inOctober 3, 1994: Subdividing the desert: Should there be a vote?
False alarm
Two years ago, the Department of Interior reported that nonprofit conservation organizations such as The Nature Conservancy were making “substantial” money buying land and selling it to federal agencies. Various conservatives and wise-use groups seized on the report, saying it proved that environmentalists exploit the federal government as ruthlessly as any corporation using the public […]
Posted inOctober 3, 1994: Subdividing the desert: Should there be a vote?
Save the temperate forests
Because of logging gridlock in the Northwest, some timber companies have turned their saws toward the Northern Rockies. Forest activists will plan their response Nov. 9-13 at the Second International Temperate Forest Conference in Missoula, Mont. The Native Forest Network, a coalition of environmentalists, wants the gathering to attract indigenous peoples, conservation biologists, and non-governmental […]
Posted inOctober 3, 1994: Subdividing the desert: Should there be a vote?
No room at the top
Climbing one of Colorado’s 14,000-foot peaks used to be a solitary joy. These days 50,000 people top the state’s famous “fourteeners’ each year, and in one weekend on Mt. Harvard near Buena Vista, 133 signatures filled the summit register. Marketed in myriad guidebooks, the climbing craze is shattering solitude and trashing ecosystems, reports the American […]
Posted inOctober 3, 1994: Subdividing the desert: Should there be a vote?
A climbing plan for Devils Tower
One hundred and one years ago, when William Rogers and Willard Ripley were the first climbers to top Wyoming’s Devils Tower, they also started a controversy. In the following decades the tower became a climbing mecca. Yet to some Native Americans it has always been a sacred place. To try to satisfy both interests, the […]
Posted inOctober 3, 1994: Subdividing the desert: Should there be a vote?
One down, three to go
Following the belief that conservation, like charity, begins at home, Ecotrust was founded three years ago in Oregon to save temperate rain forests in North America. The organization chose four rain forests to concentrate on. Now, thanks to a Canadian timber company, it can devote its resources to the three rain forests still at risk. […]
Posted inOctober 3, 1994: Subdividing the desert: Should there be a vote?
New look at a river basin
The market-oriented environmental group that helped McDonalds get rid of Styrofoam wants to save the Colorado River Basin. The Environmental Defense Fund recently launched its Colorado River Basin Initiative, a project that begins by re-evaluating the Colorado River compact. The compact has dictated water use in the basin for the past 70 years. EDF hopes […]
Posted inOctober 3, 1994: Subdividing the desert: Should there be a vote?
Sole source
The EPA may grant special protection status to an aquifer that covers 14,000 square miles in eastern Washington and portions of western Idaho. A local environmental group, the Palouse-Clearwater Environmental Institute, petitioned the agency in 1992 to designate the Eastern Columbia Plateau aquifer as the “sole source” of drinking water for the area. The EPA […]
Posted inOctober 3, 1994: Subdividing the desert: Should there be a vote?
Saved from subdivision
A letter-writing campaign to members of Congress last year helped protect 18,000 acres of privately owned land within central Colorado’s Roosevelt National Forest. The area, known as Cherokee Park, was owned by Union Pacific Railroad and targeted for sale to developers for recreational homes. Once alerted, the Trust For Public Land, a San Francisco-based organization, […]
Posted inOctober 3, 1994: Subdividing the desert: Should there be a vote?
Bigots in Big Sky
-Montana is and always will be WHITE MAN’S COUNTRY,” reads a recruitment pamphlet distributed by white supremacist groups in rural areas of the state. More than 20 such hate groups, targeting African Americans, Jews, homosexuals and Native Americans, blight the landscape in Big Sky country, according to a 57-page report by the Montana Advisory Committee […]
Posted inOctober 3, 1994: Subdividing the desert: Should there be a vote?
Hikers can bear grizzlies
Restoring grizzly bears to Washington’s North Cascades and Idaho’s Selway-Bitterroot ecosystems won’t interfere with hunters, hikers or horseback riders, says a conservation group in Bellingham, Wash. The group, Greater Ecosystem Alliance, examined closures of trails and campgrounds caused by grizzlies in 11 national forests and two national parks. All had little effect on recreation. Blocked […]
Posted inOctober 3, 1994: Subdividing the desert: Should there be a vote?
Water planning in the desert
Residents of the driest state in the nation use more water per person than almost anyone else in the country. But change may be forced on Nevada by sustained drought and record population growth. The State Division of Water Planning is drafting a new policy to guide water-planning decisions for the next 20 years. The […]
Posted inOctober 3, 1994: Subdividing the desert: Should there be a vote?
… As park poacher holds on to trophies
A professional bowhunter who admitted poaching protected elk in Yellowstone National Park for nine years may get to keep his spoils. Federal prosecutors say they will not press Donald E. Lewis to hand over his illegal animal trophies to the government, as mandated by a plea bargain Lewis and his hunting partner, Arthur Sims, agreed […]
Posted inOctober 3, 1994: Subdividing the desert: Should there be a vote?
Yellowstone makes bragging hazardous …
Poachers may want to avoid Yellowstone National Park this fall. Rangers have begun photographing the park’s most spectacular wildlife so that pictures are available if the animals are killed and their heads mounted as trophies. “This way, if we find that poachers have gotten one of these animals, we know exactly what to look for […]
Posted inOctober 3, 1994: Subdividing the desert: Should there be a vote?
Mining reform: dead or alive?
As Congress prepares to adjourn for the year, chances that it will pass legislation reforming the 1872 Mining Law grow slimmer by the day. Sen. Harry Reid, D, who emerged as a key negotiator for the Western Democrats, says the Senate would have approved a draft put forth by a House-Senate conference committee in early […]
Posted inOctober 3, 1994: Subdividing the desert: Should there be a vote?
Mike Synar loses
Oklahoma Rep. Mike Synar, D, one of Congress’ leading advocates for federal grazing reform, lost a Democratic primary runoff Sept. 20 to a little-known retired school principal. Virgil Cooper defeated the eight-term congressman 52 percent to 48 percent. Ranchers cheered the defeat of the outspoken critic of “welfare cowboys’ using public lands in the West, […]
Posted inOctober 3, 1994: Subdividing the desert: Should there be a vote?
Inspector commits “career suicide’
Steve Jones’ 20-year career in federal safety inspection may be over. He was fired Sept. 14 by the contractor that is building and operating a chemical weapons incinerator at Utah’s Tooele Army Depot. Jones says he’s spent a frustrating three months trying to track down safety violations there. Now Jones is commiting what he calls […]