The GOP tax bill opens the Arctic to energy development, setting the stage for divisive battles to come.
Alaska is open for drilling
Posted inArticles
Interior revokes climate change and mitigation policies
Many regulations were axed because they are ‘burdens’ to energy development.
Posted inArticles
Will Trump put a ‘hired gun’ for ranchers in top BLM post?
The president is considering a BLM director who has continually fought the agency.
Posted inArticles
For endangered species, politics replaces science
A leaked Fish and Wildlife memo suggests a shift away from science.
Posted inFebruary 5, 2018: Caught Between Crises
How Trump’s tax bill pits the rich against the poor
We are witnessing a government restructuring and a cultural divide widening.
Posted inJanuary 22, 2018: A Separatist State of Mind
Hemp is one town’s way out of a uranium mining past
A former mining region embraces a trade with a ‘hippie’ reputation.
Posted inJanuary 22, 2018: A Separatist State of Mind
Courts challenge a piecemeal approach to species recovery
A recent ruling may cause Fish and Wildlife to reconsider how it protects grizzlies.
Posted inArticles
Reckoning with History: Interior’s legacy of bad behavior
Ryan Zinke isn’t the first Interior secretary to attract controversy.
Posted inArticles
Logging isn’t the solution to our wildfire problems
We can’t ‘solve’ fire any more than we can ‘solve’ hurricanes.
Posted inArticles
The tiny power plant that shapes the Colorado River — merely by existing
The Shoshone power plant is the cornerstone for water rights in the upper river.
Posted inArticles
What does a gentrifying city look like? Talk to the man who delivers the mail.
Tracing Tucson’s changes with a longtime postal service worker.
Posted inArticles
Our 7 favorite features of the year
Did you miss one of the stories that explored the lesser-known West?
Posted inArticles
16 major environmental protections cut in 2017
Climate change initiatives were the most targeted by the Trump administration.
Posted inArticles
2017 in natural disasters
From massive wildfires to melting ice, the calamities that affected the West this year.
Posted inArticles
The best photos of 2017: wildfire, protests and bears
What caught our eye this year.
Posted inFebruary 5, 2018: Caught Between Crises
How NAFTA built a bustling border city
In southern New Mexico, a dream of a bi-national community, not a concrete wall.
Posted inDecember 25, 2017: Bear Essentials
The insanity of wild horse management
Blaming wild horses alone for overgrazing of public lands fails to comprehend they are victims of “management” as are taxpayers (“The Navajo Nation has a wild horse problem,” HCN, 10/6/17). It is also clear that in the remaining areas on public lands where wild horses and burros are allowed to exist at all, they share […]
Posted inDecember 25, 2017: Bear Essentials
The iconic bird of the ‘Sagebrush Sea’
A new book shows the life cycle of sage grouse in their natural habitat.
Posted inDecember 25, 2017: Bear Essentials
Speaking for the trees
Cally Carswell has given a voice to rare plants. I thoroughly enjoyed her article “Threatened plants on state lands have few protections” (HCN, 11/27/17). Thank you for dedicating a feature article to the plight of rare plants. “Plant blindness” is a widespread malady that can only be cured by repeated exposure to the sublime world […]
Posted inDecember 25, 2017: Bear Essentials
Soul and conscience
Reader responses to Linda Hasselstrom’s awfully honest poem about her father’s command to take care of the kittens reveal how little some of those readers understood her words, and how little they know about ranch life (“Heard Around the West,” HCN, 10/30/17). All too often it is urbanites, beleaguered by kittens they are too lazy […]