Ernest Hemingway said every writer needs a “shockproof B.S.-detector.” My B.S.-detector has been getting a workout, as the presidential candidates have been hunting for votes this autumn. In particular, they are seeking the votes of the 47 million Americans who hunt and fish. In a race this tight, politicians see this as a bloc as […]
Presidential candidates try to look svelte in blaze orange
Posted inWotr
Automate this: personal interaction in a small town
The big news in my small town has been the new automated checkout line at the grocery store. You scan the purchases yourself, and then give the machine your credit card, with no need for any human interaction. At least that’s how I’m told it works — I haven’t used the thing myself. It’s a […]
Posted inWotr
What I Hate Most About You
Editor’s note: The author is said to live “on a 100-year-old ranch that once was miles from the nearest neighbor but now may be right next door to your new subdivision.” Dear new neighbors, I’ve never met any of you. If I did, I would be perfectly polite. Probably I’d even think you’re nice folks. […]
Posted inWotr
Red-baiters target greens in Oregon
A group in White City, Ore., has opened a broad attack on teaching environmental sustainability in our public schools and universities, calling it the kind of brainwashing Lenin and Hitler would do. The group, Operation Green Out, ran two full-page ads in The Oregonian, Oregon’s largest daily newspaper, earlier this year. They warned of a […]
Posted inSeptember 27, 2004: Life After Old Growth
Dang crazy women
Like the two previous anthologies created by editors Linda Hasselstrom, Gaydell Collier and Nancy Curtis, Leaning into the Wind and Woven on the Wind, Crazy Woman Creek gathers hundreds of poems, stories and memories from women all across the West. This latest anthology’s theme is how Western women create and sustain the connections that define […]
Posted inSeptember 27, 2004: Life After Old Growth
Calendar
The Montana Consensus Council is sponsoring a class called “Discover Conflict Partnership: The Guide to Enduring Resolutions” in Helena on Oct. 19 and 20. 406-444-9838 juedwards@state.mt.us Bird lovers are upset with President Bush — and they’re letting him know. Check out www.BirdersUnitedtoDefeatBush.com to learn more about how birdwatchers can protect bird populations, wetlands and clean […]
Posted inSeptember 27, 2004: Life After Old Growth
Forgotten borderland
From space, the Black Hills of South Dakota take the unmistakable shape of a heart, marking a region that some consider the spiritual center of the world. But driving into Bennett County, S.D., is more like entering a legal Twilight Zone. This checkerboard of private, tribal and federal land seems to belong to everyone — […]
Posted inSeptember 27, 2004: Life After Old Growth
City Slickers, go home
Your story, “Buying ecological leverage” is almost funny. I can just see that group of city slickers trying to run a working ranch, especially where they are going to introduce “Mexican wolves.” Seriously speaking, there is nothing wrong with governments fencing in unique natural features such as these “rock fins” on public grazing lands. There […]
Posted inSeptember 27, 2004: Life After Old Growth
Subsidies Strike Again
The feature article, “Prairie Conundrum” points out that the federal government’s Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) is providing incentives for farmers to convert native prairie into crop monocultures. But the article praises another USDA/Farm Bill program — the Environmental Quality Incentive Program (EQIP). According to the article, EQIP claims to “pay farmers to adopt conservation practices […]
Posted inSeptember 27, 2004: Life After Old Growth
Sometimes the simplest ideas are the best solutions
Congress has heard, loud and clear, that the Recreational Fee Demonstration Program hasn’t worked. But it still can’t quite bring itself to call an end to it. Sen. Larry Craig supports fees only for developed campgrounds and boat ramps. Those fees have never been controversial. What he fails to address is the extra wrinkle that […]
Posted inSeptember 27, 2004: Life After Old Growth
What’s wrong with user fees?
Sen. Larry Craig’s article about “Fees and our forests don’t always fit” makes a few good points, although I think that it misses some others. What I do not understand is the reluctance of Sen. Craig to support these user fees, since according to him, activities like hunting, fishing and hiking are done on “unimproved […]
Posted inSeptember 27, 2004: Life After Old Growth
Racetrack
Since the 1970s, Oregon has pioneered land-use laws to preserve rural landscapes, prevent irresponsible suburban development, and support local businesses over big-box stores (HCN, 11/25/02: Planning’s poster child grows up). Now, Oregonians in Action, a private-property rights group, is supporting an initiative that would force the state to compensate private-land owners who are restricted from […]
Posted inSeptember 27, 2004: Life After Old Growth
For endangered species, survival no longer enough
For 18 years, whenever the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had to decide whether a proposed development violated the Endangered Species Act, the agency applied a basic standard: Will it affect the survival of an endangered species? From now on, that’s not good enough, two federal courts have ruled. Instead, the Fish and Wildlife Service […]
Posted inSeptember 27, 2004: Life After Old Growth
Follow-up
Shipping radioactive waste around the country is neither cheap nor easy: When the U.S. Department of Energy shipped the wrong type to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, the New Mexico Environment Department slapped the Energy Department with a $2.4 million fine for violating the state’s hazardous waste laws (HCN, 8/2/04: Follow-up). Then, at the end […]
Posted inSeptember 27, 2004: Life After Old Growth
Heard Around the West
IDAHO The director of the BlueRibbon Coalition,a Boise-based group that lobbies for more all-terrain access on public lands, recently had to take a leave without pay. Bill Dart was cited this August by a U.S. Forest Service enforcement agent for illegally taking people on motorcycle tours through the backcountry. Dart neglected to get an outfitter’s […]
Posted inSeptember 27, 2004: Life After Old Growth
When yesterday’s garbage becomes today’s collectible
To get to Glass Beach, you turn toward the ocean at the Denny’s on the outskirts of Fort Bragg, Calif., and drive down the lane to park. Signage is minimal. This is not Big Sur. The day we go, two local guys drive up and park next to us in a Volvo that has seen […]
Posted inSeptember 27, 2004: Life After Old Growth
Utah’s wilderness warriors reply
We’d like to thank High Country News for highlighting Utah’s redrock wilderness and recognizing the value of protecting this uncommon landscape. However, we disagree with some of HCN Associate Editor Matt Jenkins’ essay which criticizes Utah wilderness advocates based on an erroneous perception that there is a stalemate on Utah Bureau of Land Management (BLM) […]
Posted inSeptember 27, 2004: Life After Old Growth
A timber town learns to care for the forest
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Life After Old Growth.” LAKEVIEW, OREGON — Perched on the easternmost edge of Oregon timber country, where scattered mountain ranges fade into the high desert, the hamlet of Lakeview is an apparition. All indications suggest that it should be dead and gone, a casualty […]
Posted inSeptember 27, 2004: Life After Old Growth
Bucking the trends: Black Hills crusader Marvin Kammerer
RAPID CITY, SOUTH DAKOTA — An old pickup rattles to the top of a grassy ridge. The Black Hills stretch across the western horizon, and in the valley below, the family ranch of Marvin Kammerer is only a dot in the fields of grass. Kammerer stops the truck, gets out and looks down on his […]
Posted inSeptember 27, 2004: Life After Old Growth
Utah’s favorite sons battle for governor
Can the Democrats capture the conservative state’s chief office?