Recently, the U.S. Forest Service announced another attempt to revise its planning regulations. While the agency takes aim at making its decision-making more collaborative, at the same time it’s running into conflict from other planning processes at the state level. Many readers are probably familiar with the Forest Service’s saga of revision, as the agency […]
Does the Forest Service Truly Believe in Collaboration?
Posted inArticles
Don’t squeeze the geezers in the great outdoors
Public land fees hurt seniors and the disabled.
Posted inRange
We are all preservationists now!
If you have yet to read Jonathan Thompson’s feature Wind Resistance in the December 09-January 10 edition you have a treat in store. By describing in vivid detail the politics surrounding wind power development in Wyoming, Jonathan elucidates what may be the largest cultural change which the West has experienced in this century so far […]
Posted inGoat
Walking with Sawdust
For a few months a couple of years ago, my daily dog walk usually involved joining two old-timers — Lloyd “Sawdust” Wilkins. then 82, and his blue-heeler Cindy, who was about 70 in dog years. Sawdust walked his daily mile — it was on doctor’s orders — slowly with a cane, but he […]
Posted inDecember 21, 2009: Wind Resistance
The big bonfire
The U.S. already has a de facto climate policy
Posted inRange
A roller-coaster decade
By David Frey, NewWest.net guest blogger, 12-29-09 The last 10 years in the West was a wild roller coaster ride, a decade of explosions and implosions: nine years of mostly up, up, up and one year of solid down. Here are five top trends that shaped the region in the first decade of a new […]
Posted inRange
What’s next for Indigenous people facing climate disruption?
Terri Hansen, a correspondent for Indian Country Today, attended the Copenhagen climate talks. She followed the story of how of indigenous rights, including those of American Indian tribes, were left out of the COP-15 talks, and filed this report for the HCN Grange blog. Indigenous peoples face big climate problems but had little say at […]
Posted inWotr
Parenting again, though not by choice
Just a year ago, I turned 65, had a modest Social Security income and half-time job with the nonprofit I’d founded 20 years earlier, and I was divorced — amicably — after a 34-year marriage. Home was a small house in the small town of Joseph in northeast Oregon, but I was making frequent trips […]
Posted inWotr
Whatever I do, it’s probably wrong
I try to do my best, I really do, but it seems harder than it should be. I’m in the grocery store, where the shiny plastic packaging stretches as far as the eye can see, and parents and kids seem larger than life – in fact, some seem the size of NFL linemen. With my […]
Posted inDecember 21, 2009: Wind Resistance
‘Firebrand ways’
A visit with one of the founders of the Center for Biological Diversity
Posted inRange
Joshua Tree Landfill Victory
Joshua Tree National Park’s Eagle Mountains conjure up images of remote desert peaks, a boundless blue sky and the namesake bird of prey that soars above pristine canyons. But for many of us, Eagle Mountain brings to mind the ongoing battle over the proposed Eagle Mountain Landfill, to be located on lands belonging to Kaiser […]
Posted inGoat
Just in Time for Christmas: Itsy-Bitsy Solar PV
One of the big obstacles to industrial-strength solar power is space: photovoltaic technology used in solar panels, which transforms sunlight into an electrical current, takes up valuable real estate. And one of the biggest obstacles to portable solar power is also size: Who wants to haul around a 2-pound PV panel just to charge a […]
Posted inArticles
Colorado River blues
Photos and audio stories of communities that live along the troubled Colorado River.
Posted inDecember 21, 2009: Wind Resistance
Life along the Colorado River
See a slideshow of Broussalian’s images of the Colorado River — and its people. The desert Southwest is unlikely to run out of water. But under the pressures of climate change and drought, population and politics, the Southwest is likely to run out of cheap water. The deal of the century will become last century’s […]
Posted inDecember 21, 2009: Wind Resistance
Food for thought
As 2009 limps to a close, Westerners have plenty of reasons to want to ring in a new — and perhaps better — year. With the economy lagging, folks are trimming budgets, shopping like Scrooge, and turning to federal food programs for a little extra help to put a holiday ham on the table. 395,000 […]
Posted inDecember 21, 2009: Wind Resistance
Little orphan easement?
A look at what happens when a land trust dissolves
Posted inDecember 21, 2009: Wind Resistance
See you in 2010
It’s time for another publishing break in our 22-issue-per-year schedule. Look for the next issue of HCN to hit your mailbox around Jan. 18. May your stockings be stuffed with goodies and may your reindeers’ noses shine brightly all season long.NEW WORKS, NEW JOBSHCN contributors and interns have been busy writing and getting new jobs, […]
Posted inDecember 21, 2009: Wind Resistance
Roadless retaliations
Ray Ring’s article “Roadless-less” devotes considerable attention to a March, 2000, Forest Service employees’ union letter opposing the Clinton roadless rule (HCN, 11/9/09). According to Ring and the union, Forest Service employees who opposed the roadless rule faced “threats of reprisal from the (Clinton) administration …” To the contrary, the only such threats of which […]
Posted inDecember 21, 2009: Wind Resistance
“Swimming in circles”
While Emily Underwood did an admirable job writing “The Lost Art of Listening,” there are two comments that are problematic (HCN, 11/23/09). Underwood wrote “… he has been consistently frustrated by what he considers teachers’ and administrators’ failure to implement his methods for teaching Arapaho” and “Greymorning is convinced that the problem lies in teachers’ […]