The wolf today inspires polarized emotions. It is viewed by some as a slavering, rapacious killing machine; by others, as the noble symbol of a lost wilderness. In the fascinating Decade of the Wolf: Returning the Wild to Yellowstone, biologist Douglas Smith and nature writer Gary Ferguson seek to sort myth from reality. They describe […]
Bringing back the wolf = bringing back the habitat
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
Foreman alienates tomorrow’s leaders
I am writing in response to your coverage of Dave Foreman’s essay (HCN, 4/18/05: Dear Friends). Although I respect what Dave Foreman means to the environmental movement, the tactics of his finger-pointing are destructive, shortsighted, ill-timed and wrong. It is critical for the environmental movement to build bridges, re-think strategies, and appeal to the younger […]
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
Environmentalists show their elitism
I am writing to congratulate Ray Ring on his analysis of the Libby disaster and how it relates to the environmental movement (HCN, 2/21/05: Where were the environmentalists when Libby needed them most?). He has unearthed the arrogance and elitism that are so pervasive in the “environmental activist” movement. It’s easy to fight “evil” corporations […]
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
Better technology for harnessing wind
The inherent variability of wind energy makes it hard to integrate into the grid (HCN, 5/02/05: The Winds of Change). Coal, gas, nuclear, biomass, geothermal and hydro plants can all be dialed up or down to meet the constantly fluctuating electricity loads. With wind, you get what you get. At 1 percent of production, as […]
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
Wind doesn’t turn this reader’s crank
I’m having a hard time getting too enthused about wind energy (HCN, 5/02/05: The Winds of Change). The idea of solving our energy woes by harnessing wind sounds wonderful, but the reality is less appealing. The California Energy Commission lists wind power as 1.5 percent of its total electricity production for 2003. The sprawl of […]
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
Settlement won’t reduce pollution
Readers of HCN’s excellent story on the effort to bring more clean, renewable energy to the West might think that the settlement agreement on the proposed coal plant in Pueblo, Colo., will somehow reduce pollution (HCN, 5/02/05: The Winds of Change). While it is true that the agreement will reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide and […]
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
Tax credits make eco-logging pay
The trouble with logging these days is that it’s hard to make a profit while still looking out for forest health. That may change, at least in some depressed Northwest timber towns, thanks to a federal program that usually helps blighted urban neighborhoods. In May, the U.S. Treasury Department gave $50 million in federal tax […]
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
Revamped road to Chaco may be the park’s ruin
It takes an intrepid visitor to reach the ancient sites at Chaco Culture National Historic Park. After leaving the highway, archaeology aficionados travel a tooth-rattling 16 miles over a washboard gravel road. The road is passable, even to low-clearance passenger vehicles, but it isn’t the most comfortable drive. And that’s just the way the park […]
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
Mountain bike association wheels into national parks
Mountain bikers scored an access victory last month when the National Park Service agreed to explore opening the long off-limits national park system to knobby tires. But riders won’t be hitting singletrack in Yellowstone or Yosemite anytime soon, says International Mountain Biking Association spokesman Mark Eller. The association signed a five-year deal with the Park […]
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
State takes another shot at land swapping
After several failed attempts at land exchanges, Utah is giving the idea another try. In early May, Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, reintroduced the Utah Recreational Land Exchange Act. The bill would give the federal government 46,000 acres of land in southeastern and northeastern Utah, while the state would receive 40,000 acres in the northeast. The […]
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
Follow-up
Sea lice are on the move — and they’re spreading, courtesy of fish farms (HCN, 3/17/03: Bracing against the tide). According to a study published in the British Proceedings of the Royal Society, wild seaward salmon passing a fish farm in the Pacific were 73 times more likely to contract sea lice, a parasite that […]
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
Reid Rosenthal Responds
Editor’s Note: Mr. Rosenthal had a lengthy response to our story, Write-Off on the Range. In the interest of allowing him to fully express his thoughts, we include below a letter from Mr. Rosenthal and the edits that Mr. Rosenthal would have made to the story if he were the editor. High Country News stands […]
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
How to Examine Conservation Easements
How to learn more about conservation easements and land trusts in your area
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
Heard around the West
UTAH Some snowmobilers have been known to skim their machines over water, striving for distance. Not surprisingly, sinking happens, not to mention at least one drowning. But how about vrooming a snowmobile over dirt? How far could you get? A 35-year-old man found one answer recently, when he gunned his snowmobile down an unpaved parking […]
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
Ego gates get my goat — and that’s just the beginning
So my neighbor finally got a ranchette. Whether it’s five acres or 40, the next step is apparently the perfect entrance gate. Rancheteers have made these huge gates the latest symbol of affluence in the West. They boast uprights bigger than my house, flanked by imported decorative boulders. The crossbar seems sometimes to be a […]
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
Colorado tax credits make easements work for working people
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Write-off on the Range.” Colorado farmers Dorothy and Norman Kehmeier have raised more than $500,000 in cash, simply by donating conservation easements on about 200 acres of their land. And they’d like other landowners to hear about it. “It’s wonderful,” Dorothy Kehmeier says. She’s […]
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
Congress looks to reform a system with no steering wheel
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Write-off on the Range.” When a congressional think tank proposed overhauling the tax rules surrounding conservation easements in January, it hit private-land conservationists like a thunderbolt. As part of its 435-page report on reforming many aspects of the federal tax system, the Joint Committee […]
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
Conservation Easement Statistics
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Write-off on the Range.” 1.1 billion Total private acres in United States 2 million Number of acres of “development sprawl” consuming landscapes per year 800,000 Number of acres of land protected by local and regional land trusts per year, either in new conservation easements […]
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
A glimpse of the past in a grain of pollen
NAME Cathy Whitlock VOCATION Montana State University paleoecologist AGE 51 HOME BASE Bozeman, Montana NOTED FOR Discerning ecosystem changes over the last 20,000 years SHE SAYS “It’s a great puzzle trying to figure out how an ecosystem works.” “For me, it’s about solving a big mystery,” says Cathy Whitlock, describing her work as a paleoecologist […]
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
A massive restoration program may have nothing left to save
Food chain collapsing in the California Delta