All sides are hailing the negotiated settlement of a lawsuit challenging the Forest Service’s salvage logging plan for Montana’s burned Bitterroot National Forest (HCN, 1/21/02: Judge puts kibosh on logging plan). On Feb. 7, environmental groups, the logging industry and Bush administration officials announced a revised plan that removes 27,000 acres of sensitive roadless lands […]
The Latest Bounce
Posted inFebruary 18, 2002: Here lies the Rio Grande
Cheney picks former aide to oversee parks, BLM,wildlife
When Paul Hoffman went hunting in Wyoming’s Absaroka Mountains last fall, he shot a six-point bull elk. Then he cut it into steaks and burgers for his family to eat. Now he plans to take the stuffed head and antlers to Washington, D.C., to decorate his new office. “I think that’s one reason they picked […]
Posted inFebruary 18, 2002: Here lies the Rio Grande
The Eucalyptus: Sacred or profane?
Only God can make a tree, but any ecological illiterate can plant it in the wrong place. Ansel Adams understood this. On running tree-planting Boy Scouts out of California’s Marin Headlands, the photographer declared: “I cannot think of a more tasteless undertaking than to plant trees in a naturally treeless area, and to impose an […]
Posted inFebruary 18, 2002: Here lies the Rio Grande
Heard around the West
Once in a while, Utah makes us wonder. Guns, for instance, enjoy a privileged status that extends everywhere on Beehive State property except prisons, hospitals and courtrooms. That means you can wear a .40-caliber Glock pistol while teaching or taking notes in a college classroom, and nobody has the right to ask you to leave […]
Posted inFebruary 18, 2002: Here lies the Rio Grande
Greens join ‘Let’s derail a judge’ game
Federal judges around the West have often been the backstop protecting everything environmental, from stream quality to spotted owls. So it’s surprising when green groups say some judges are systematically undercutting their work. But some “highly ideological and activist judges are threatening the very core of environmental law,” warns a campaign by a dozen groups, […]
Posted inFebruary 18, 2002: Here lies the Rio Grande
Attention, wolves: I’m what’s for dinner
Like many Western states before it, Colorado is considering a plan to bring the wolf back to its former turf in the Centennial State. Among the general public, support for the plan is significant: A study by a Washington, D.C., polling firm found that 68 percent of Coloradans asked were in favor of putting wolves […]
Posted inFebruary 18, 2002: Here lies the Rio Grande
How does snow melt? A test for all Westerners
“You can’t be a sissy and live in this country,” the old rancher told me, his German accent evident despite his being native to this mountain valley. “Or at least you didn’t use to,” he added, looking me in the eye. It was the 1970s, and I was new to the Interior West. The rancher […]
Posted inFebruary 18, 2002: Here lies the Rio Grande
Running for cover on the Rio Grande
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. LOWER RIO GRANDE VALLEY, Texas – Spanish explorers who came here in the 16th century found a jungle of cedar elm and sugar hackberry hung with moss. They called the river Rio de las Palmas, the River of Palms, because of the sabal palm […]
Posted inFebruary 18, 2002: Here lies the Rio Grande
What is poisoning border babies?
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. BROWNSVILLE, Texas – In April 1991, health care workers in this border town were brought up short. In a matter of hours, three babies were born at the Community Health Clinic with anencephaly, a rare birth defect marked by the failure of the fetus […]
Posted inFebruary 18, 2002: Here lies the Rio Grande
A river on the line
A trip through the U.S.-Mexico borderlands reveals a tough road ahead for the Rio Grande
Posted inFebruary 18, 2002: Here lies the Rio Grande
Will bulldozers roll into Arizona’s Eden?
Rancher’s wilderness inholding caught in a decade-long feud
Posted inFebruary 18, 2002: Here lies the Rio Grande
Battle brews over a wilderness mother lode
Activists say Montana’s Rock Creek Mine would harm grizzly, bull trout and clean water
Posted inFebruary 18, 2002: Here lies the Rio Grande
Condor program laden with lead
Carcass-feeding condors dying from bullets
Posted inFebruary 18, 2002: Here lies the Rio Grande
Predator politics gets ugly in Idaho
Fish and Game Director Rod Sando quits
Posted inFebruary 18, 2002: Here lies the Rio Grande
Dear Friends
An educational journey Our cover story, written by associate publisher Greg Hanscom, is the last in a three-year series on the Rio Grande. It’s been quite an education. While HCN has a long history with the geography and politics of the Colorado River, the Rio Grande has always been something of a mystery to us. […]
Posted inFebruary 18, 2002: Here lies the Rio Grande
Here lies the Rio Grande
A telling end to the tangled story of a once-great river
Posted inFebruary 4, 2002: Last dance for the sage grouse?
Looking for the Language of Red
Even in its hardcover form, Terry Tempest Williams’ new book, Red: Passion and Patience in the Desert, is small enough to fit easily into your backpack, the one you might carry if you happened to be taking a trip through, say, the redrock country of southern Utah. The book’s size is no accident. A collection […]
Posted inFebruary 4, 2002: Last dance for the sage grouse?
Post-cowboy economy not a Barbie Doll world
Dear HCN, We offer the following comments in response to Ed Marston’s cultural critique of our recent book, Post-Cowboy Economics: Pay and Prosperity in the New West (HCN, 12/17/01: Economics with a heart, but no soul). Healthy natural landscapes do not merely provide “playgrounds” and “pretty” amenities for “soulless” in-migrants. They provide a broad range […]
Posted inFebruary 4, 2002: Last dance for the sage grouse?
Grand Canyon plan relaunched
ARIZONA The Grand Canyon stretch of the Colorado River has become an ideological and regulatory war zone, as debates rage over the use of motorized boats, and private and commercial boaters fight for their share of the river-permit pie. In 1997, the Park Service tried to chart the future of the Colorado by starting work […]
Posted inFebruary 4, 2002: Last dance for the sage grouse?
Sparring over elk imports
COLORADO Elk ranchers and lawmakers are worried sick about chronic wasting disease. The fatal brain malady has occurred at low levels in wild populations of elk and deer in northeastern Colorado for three decades, but is now spreading in herds of domestic elk that live in close contact with one another (HCN, 11/5/01: Wasting disease […]