The trailer for the new documentary Gasland lasts all of 15 seconds: a man turns on the kitchen tap. He holds a match up to the flowing water and FWOOSH–foot-high flames leap toward the ceiling. Dramatic, yes, but perhaps old news to Westerners who know the possible dangers of natural gas drilling. Thanks to a […]
Popcorn Activism
Posted inRange
Community Forestry, or Not?
A new buzzword phrase appears to making the rounds in the natural resource policy world. The phrase is “social license”. I wasn’t sure what the phrase meant, so I looked it up on where else…Google. Here is what I found. Apparently it originally came to mean the unwritten approval that a corporation needed to gain […]
Posted inBlog
Toxic legacy for tribes
Earlier this month, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals approved a controversial permit for uranium mining operations at sites in Church Rock, New Mexico. The operation includes a site associated with the largest release of liquid radioactive waste in United States History — a catastrophe which continues, a generation later, to negatively impact the lives […]
Posted inWotr
Nevada hunters need to study their Aldo Leopold
Question: When does a state wildlife commission turn into a death commission? Answer: When it does what Nevada did last December. That’s when the Nevada Wildlife Commission approved a $212,000 raid on the state’s Heritage Fund, a reserve dedicated to wildlife conservation projects. But instead of conservation, the Nevada Wildlife Commission redirected the Heritage Fund […]
Posted inArticles
Just journalism, or hegemonic narrative?
An environmental justice activist responds to HCN’s coverage
Posted inRange
Wolf conflict, take 452
Outfitters and ranchers often complain that environmental advocacy groups harness money from urban coastal dwellers to interfere in the lives of hard-working westerners. What if this money was harnessed instead through a program similar to the duck stamp initiative, in which those concerned about protecting carnivores pay into a fund that would directly assist communities […]
Posted inWotr
Good fences don’t mangle wildlife
This winter a small tragedy took place on a ridge above the Bitterroot Valley of western Montana near where I live. I was nearly home when two neighbors out for a walk frantically flagged my truck down. They’d found a deer silently struggling, hanging upside down by one back leg, gripped in a loop of […]
Posted inGoat
The death of a giant
Stewart Udall passed away on March 20. His conservation accomplishments in the West are legendary (although he wasn’t always an environmental hero; as an Arizona representative, he voted to dam Glen Canyon). Our 2004 feature on Udall summed up his legacy (and that of his brother Mo): Stewart served three terms as an Arizona congressman, […]
Posted inGoat
Taking back the country
Colorado’s political season got off to its official start on March 16 with precinct caucuses, but even before those gatherings, some candidates had ads on TV. Among them was Jane Norton, former lieutenant governor and one of several candidates for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate. The seat was won by Democrat […]
Posted inRange
A promise kept
The three most important things to know about what health care reform means to Indian Country are simple ideas. First, the United States, officially and permanently, recognizes its trust and treaty obligation for health care delivery to American Indians and Alaska Natives. Second, there will be more money (not enough, but more) pumped into the […]
Posted inRange
HCN Reader Photo: Eagle in Winter
After a bit of a hiatus, we’ve reinstated our weekly reader photo with this inspiring image from Paul Larmer. Add your photos to our HCN reader pool on Flickr.
Posted inGoat
Predator control, Alaska-style
In Alaska, it’s once again time for one of the state’s major rites of spring — the aerial shooting of wolves. In five management areas around the state, Alaska’s Department of Fish and Game has decided that there aren’t enough moose and caribou, and that the answer is to shoot more wolves. In the Fortymile […]
Posted inGoat
Wheatpastin’ the Rez
During the last year or so, a new kind of “graffiti” has been showing up on abandoned buildings, old billboards and rusted out oil tanks on the Navajo Nation. A street artist who goes by the name of Jetsonorama (who sometimes works with another artist, Yote, and No Reservation Required) has been plastering these places […]
Posted inMarch 15, 2010: Mobile Nation
Untold tales of the American frontier
Images of the black experience in the West
Posted inGoat
Name that fish
Quah-rah, Ulken, Anchovies, Olthen’, All-Can, Uth-le-chan, Uthulhuns, othlecan, ulichan, fathom-fish, Oulachan, “those little finny swarming beings of the deep,” Oolá-han, uthlecan, ulluchans, Ulachans, oolachan, Hoolakans, Hooligan . . . If this list is any indication, frontiersmen had a hell of a time figuring out what, precisely, to call this thing. In 1856, when Dr. William […]
Posted inBlog
Forged on a Rough Frontier
One thing is certain: High Country News founder Tom Bell wasn’t afraid of poking a finger in someone’s chest. He openly criticized Wyoming’s ranchers and industry and the politicians that looked after them. The state’s pro-development governor, Stanley K. Hathaway, was a frequent target, as were a pair of Casper-area ranchers who shot and poisoned […]
Posted inMarch 15, 2010: Mobile Nation
Cutting away from the pack
Keith Allred chats about his run for governor in uber-Republican Idaho … as a Democrat
Posted inMarch 15, 2010: Mobile Nation
When you carry your home with you, when are you home?
At High Country News, we think a lot about that overused but still relevant term, “a sense of place.” I don’t know exactly what it means, either. But I think it involves knowing that we’re here, rather than, well, over there. And that we understand at least some of the characteristics that make this place […]