Lentils are a humble and earthy food. They’re not intended for the fancy dishes that tap-dance around the table; they’re more at home in simple, nourishing foods like Indian dal or hippy mush, the kind of food that feeds villages. Even better, lentils come from a plant that improves the land where it grows as […]
Lentil Underground is a Montana phenomenon
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Will public-lands ranchers pay more for grazing?
An Obama administration proposal would more than double fees.
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Airports in the rural West are getting squeezed
Starting sometime in May my only option for flying from Moab, Utah, to a regional hub will be to get on a Brasilia 30-seat turboprop (Great Lakes Airlines) that flies over the heart of the Rockies to Denver. Until then, we have Beechcraft 1900s that fly to Salt Lake City. Both of these are venerable […]
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Ranch Diaries: Ways to reduce the inevitable risks
On cattle futures, planning for potential drought, and grazing cows to encourage forage growth.
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Bison to be reintroduced in Banff, new plans for Yellowstone herd
Promising developments percolate in two North American parks.
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Dispatch from a gas patch shopping trip
Reporters Notebook from New Mexico’s San Juan Basin.
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BLM seeks Congressional OK for new fees, private donations
Agency woes range from too many wild horses to not enough drilling inspectors.
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BLM’s new fracking rules strike middle ground
But they’re unlikely to resolve today’s fierce skirmishes over oil and gas development.
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Does Obama’s order on climate overlook a major source of greenhouse gases?
Energy extracted from federal lands accounts for nearly one-quarter of all energy-related emissions.
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Drought persists in the Northwest, despite winter rains
Water supplies and drought outlooks are grim in most Western states.
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Should the Bureau of Reclamation be abolished?
Former Reclamation Commissioner Daniel Beard tells how defunct water policy, and the bureau itself, contribute to drought.
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California state parks’ blueprint for a more diverse future
Plans to overhaul park system, appeal to communities of color.
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A manifesto can set you free
This past fall, my friend Lauren asked me to speak to an English class she teaches at a small alternative school in western Colorado. She was encouraging these juniors and seniors to write a personal manifesto, and after hearing that I had created one myself a few years ago, she thought I’d be a perfect guest lecturer. […]
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California has one year of water left: Hype or reality?
When a NASA scientist speaks in blunt terms about water supply, other scientists take notice.
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Jewell vows to make energy development on public lands cleaner
A long-delayed fracking rule will be announced within days.
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Chaco: A World Heritage site faces fracking
Across the nation there are many places to drill for oil and gas, but there is only one center for the ancient Ancestral Puebloan culture. That is Chaco Culture National Historical Park in northwestern New Mexico, a World Heritage site that is threatened by encroaching oil and gas development. How unfortunate that just as oil […]
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This just happened: Alaska’s warm winter
It might seem like the big weather story this winter was the spate of snow and cold that hit the East Coast. But a more prolonged and sobering story was all the snow and cold that did not hit large parts of the West, and especially Alaska. Today, the Sierra Nevada’s snowpack hovers at around […]
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How ‘amenity migrants’ push out locals
Communities once sustained by local labor now rely on stock market dividends.
Posted inMarch 16, 2015: Wild Ride
Wilderness vets
In May of 1966, I returned from a combat tour in Southeast Asia. It was a return full of challenges (“Wilderness as therapist,” HCN, 2/16/15). For two years, I had been surrounded by the noise and smell of war and had been trying to survive day to day. How was I going to cope? I […]