Primer 3: Recreation

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Primer 3: Recreation

by Jodi Peterson

The energy industry isn’t the only one defacing the West’s wild spaces with fresh roads and trails, trampled wildlife habitat, and fouled air and water. Unmanaged recreation, primarily the motorized sort, is one of the top threats facing the nation’s public lands, say federal officials. Other major problems, including the loss of open space and […]

Posted inWotr

An empty canyon full of everything

by Seth Shteir

Lamoille Canyon doesn’t attract many tourists. It’s in Nevada’s remote northeastern corner, and that’s just fine with me. I’ve come to the Ruby Mountains for something that’s becoming rare in America: a starry sky and a generous helping of Western birds. Even the drive to Lamoille Canyon is wonderful. Telephone poles on the deserted state […]

Posted inWotr

A hard winter makes you think

by Rhonda Claridge

After more than a decade of mild winters, we residents of this high-altitude town in southern Colorado got a dose of the genuine article. Not since “Remember December,” when it snowed every day in December 1983, had anyone seen this much snow. But stories from old-timers, those remnant miners who stayed on here long after […]

Posted inMarch 31, 2008: My Crazy Brother

Reasons to stay

by T.K. Dalton

“Wyoming,” Charlotte Bacon writes, “made you feel that an articulated reason to stay was a good thing to develop.” In Bacon’s new novel, Split Estate, that nebulous feeling drives Arthur King to leave New York City with his two teenagers, Cam and Celia, after his wife, Laura, commits suicide. He rashly moves the family west […]

Posted inMarch 31, 2008: My Crazy Brother

The park service has the power

by T. Destry Jarvis, President Outdoor Recreation and Park Services,

The “Unnatural Preservation” article, like nearly everything else in HCN, is generally excellent (HCN, 2/04/08). However, the authors miss, I think, an important element of the National Park Service management philosophy, and thus distort their conclusions about the agency. While the Park Service still holds onto the general thrust of the policy toward its natural […]

Posted inMarch 31, 2008: My Crazy Brother

Managing complexity

by Amy Whitcomb

I feel the issues in “Unnatural Preservation” were presented in a very dichotomous way, that is, scientists versus managers, now versus never, all versus nothing (HCN, 2/04/08). Yet there are plenty of examples where we are addressing the gray area by trying different things at different scales, creating multidisciplinary collaborations, and envisioning alternative future landscapes. […]

Posted inMarch 31, 2008: My Crazy Brother

Higher wages and health hazards

by Joe Kerkvliet, Resource Economist The Wilderness Society and Joh

The prospect of “high wage” mining and energy jobs is one reason Western communities might welcome extractive industries (HCN, 2/18/08). Indeed, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data confirm that mining and construction pay well, averaging $20 per hour, while workers in the “Leisure and Hospitality” industry make just $10 per hour. So does the […]

Posted inMarch 31, 2008: My Crazy Brother

Wyoming’s day in the spin

by Ed Quillen

Talk about surprising: The Democratic presidential candidates actually paid some attention to Wyoming. With only 522,830 residents, according to last summer’s Census Bureau estimate, Wyoming has the smallest population of all 50 states. Furthermore, no Democratic presidential candidate has carried the Equality State in 44 years, not since the Lyndon B. Johnson landslide of 1964, […]

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