When renowned zoologist Jane Lubchenco was sworn in as President Obama’s director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in 2009, she declared: “Science will be respected at NOAA; science will not be muzzled.” Lubchenco’s doctrine signaled a new day. Today, four years later, she would be the first to admit that her edict was […]
The education of Dr. Jane Lubchenco
Posted inArticles
Feds enabled oil drillers, others to cheat Fort Berthold tribes
Editor’s note: This ProPublica story follows up on our 2012 story “The Other Bakken Boom” with additional information on lawsuits alleging that the U.S. government allowed the Fort Berthold tribes to be cheated by energy companies. Native Americans on an oil-rich North Dakota reservation have been cheated out of more than $1 billion by schemes […]
Posted inFebruary 18, 2013: Farming on the Fringe
Farmers agree to tax those who deplete groundwater
Amid drought and climate change in Colorado’s San Luis Valley, farmers vote for a new approach to rein in their overpumping of groundwater.
Posted inRange
The future of wolverines
By Kylie Paul, Defenders of Wildlife After more than a decade of legal hand-wringing, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) finally proposed on Feb. 1 to protect wolverines in the lower 48 states as a threatened species. But invoking the Endangered Species Act alone is not going to save wolverines from looming threats on […]
Posted inRange
A new vision for public lands
In 2012, the seemingly endless argument over what level of government ought to be the manager over part of the federal land estate flared up again, led by individuals in Utah and Arizona. In Arizona, in March, the state legislature passed a bill that called for federal land agencies to give up title to roughly […]
Posted inGoat
The endangered species to-do list
One summer, I spent so much time fishing the stocked pond behind my parent’s house that middle-school boys called me “bass-master.” Most of my 14th birthday presents were lures. I grew up near the headwaters of the Potomac River in western Maryland, and my dad used to hike into those streams to tempt wily brook […]
Posted inFebruary 18, 2013: Farming on the Fringe
My Dakota: A photo essay and conversation
We recommend you select the gallery option to view these images. In 2005, photographer Rebecca Norris Webb decided it was time to head West with her camera. She’d lived in New York City for 15 years, and spent six years working in the cramped interiors of zoos and aquariums for The Glass Between Us, her […]
Posted inWotr
Water is life for the Navajo Nation
Growing up on Black Mesa in northeast Arizona on the Navajo Nation, we often lived like nomads, following our sheep. As a child, I wasn’t aware that other people in America stayed put, living in one place. Whenever I returned home from boarding school during a break, I’d often find my family living somewhere new […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Gun gluttony
WASHINGTON “Seattle’s nice,” says photographer Regina Johnson, “but it isn’t Paradise.” Courtesy Regina Johnson. UTAH AND WYOMING Could Second Amendment defenders have gone too far, even in this gun-loving region? If two calmly reasoned editorials in Utah and Wyoming’s major daily newspapers are right, you’d have to say, yep, looks like it. Editorializing last month, […]
Posted inGoat
Delayed gratification
Back in July 2011, a Montana judge prohibited Imperial Oil, a subsidiary of ExxonMobile, from trucking 200 “megaloads” of tar sands mining equipment over the company’s preferred rural highway route. Even though Montana and Idaho state officials had backed the plan, and Imperial had secured the necessary permits, local governments and conservation groups had taken […]
Posted inGoat
The sad tale of Shiprock South
Residents of northwestern New Mexico may by now be numbed by the almost surreal, ongoing saga of the busted housing development in Shiprock. But to those unfamiliar with the tale, it’s downright heartbreaking. “Navajo housing project could waste millions,” reads the headline in the Farmington Daily Times, and “be forever incomplete.” The story opens: SHIPROCK […]
Posted inWotr
The more we drill, the more vulnerable we become
Although some small town residents see oil and gas drilling as destructive to their rural way of life, others welcome the most recent oil and gas boom for its promised benefits for the local economy. Here in Moab, Utah, for example, civic leaders like to say that extraction in the Canyonlands region will provide future […]
Posted inFebruary 18, 2013: Farming on the Fringe
The BLM fights for the Southwest’s last free-flowing river
SIERRA VISTA, ARIZONA “For sale: Prime Office/Retail,” proclaims the sign on a mesquite flat on the outskirts of this affluent city of 47,000 people, about an hour south of Tucson near the Huachuca Mountains. It’s announcing a 2,000-acre project known as Tribute, proposed by California developer Castle and Cooke and approved by city leaders six […]
Posted inGoat
Want to put Western weather on the map?
Some of the earliest weather forecasts began with people scattered across the country who regularly telegraphed observations back to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. as part of a mid-1800s program to solve “the problem of American storms.” Though scientific tools have advanced far beyond the telegraph, the challenge of forecasting small-scale, fast-acting weather events, […]
Posted inRange
Western States Survey says
Colorado College’s 2013 Western States Survey report is out. This year pollsters grilled 2,400 voters in Arizona, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming on energy, conservation and the role of government in both, and it yielded some fascinating results. Westerners’ views of natural resources and public lands, and the roles they play in our […]
Posted inGoat
Spending money to save money
Say you’re a struggling Western freelance writer. In a quest for some dependable cash, you apply to work on trail crew for a summer with the Forest Service — a great way to be in the mountains and make money. You call up the local USFS office and get assurance that yes, you’re qualified, and […]
Posted inFebruary 18, 2013: Farming on the Fringe
Sierra Club fights Keystone XL with civil disobedience
In 2004, Carl Pope, then-director of the Sierra Club, tangled publicly with Capt. Paul Watson, head of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. Pope was steering the club towards cooperative solutions to environmental problems, collaborating with large corporations instead of fighting them. Watson, an advocate of direct action whose group blocked environmental despoilers with living bodies […]
Posted inFebruary 18, 2013: Farming on the Fringe
Reading the Brautigan Bible: A review of Jubilee Hitchhiker: The Life and Times of Richard Brautigan
Jubilee Hitchhiker: The Life and Times of Richard BrautiganWilliam Hjortsberg896 pages,hardcover: $38.Counterpoint Press, 2012. Richard Brautigan grew up in Oregon, convinced he’d be an influential writer. He rose to fame in San Francisco and later split his time between Bolinas, Calif., Livingston, Mont. and Japan. He published 10 poetry books and a dozen novels, including […]
Posted inFebruary 18, 2013: Farming on the Fringe
Our loyal readers come through, yet again
The staff had great news to pass on to the High Country News board of directors during our winter board meeting (held in cyberspace) Jan. 25th: Over the holidays, you all sent in a record number of gift subscriptions and Research Fund donations, along with several substantial grants supporting HCN‘s editorial work and the upgrade of […]