1981 The U.S. Forest Service starts to consider the impact of intensive logging on the California spotted owl. 1984 The agency recognizes the California spotted owl as a “sensitive” species, vulnerable to extinction. 1991 Sacramento Bee reporter Tom Knudson writes a series on the forest-health crisis in the Sierra Nevada. “The Sierra in Peril” wins […]
A plan for the Sierra: 20 years in the making
Posted inAugust 27, 2001: Restoring the range of light
The way it works
The final Sierra Nevada Framework is the guiding planning document for 11 million acres of national forest lands in California. It covers the Humboldt-Toiyabe, Modoc, Lassen, Plumas, Tahoe, Eldorado, Stanislaus, Sierra, Inyo and Sequoia national forests, and the Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit. In a nutshell, the plan will: Reduce the total allowed timber harvest […]
Posted inAugust 27, 2001: Restoring the range of light
Sierra Framework treads between protection, treatment
While everyone agrees that the Sierra Nevada’s vast forests and its creatures are in trouble, no one knows for sure how the U.S. Forest Service can restore the range to a condition that inspires rather than alarms – not even the authors of the agency’s 3,100-page Sierra Nevada Framework. The usual characters are present – […]
Posted inAugust 27, 2001: Restoring the range of light
Drawing a line in the mud
Coloradans weed out tamarisk before it takes over
Posted inAugust 27, 2001: Restoring the range of light
Neighbors get nasty in New Mexico
Is Deirdre Wolf a martyr or a menace?
Posted inAugust 27, 2001: Restoring the range of light
A-LP gets federal A-OK
Colorado’s huge water project poised for funding
Posted inAugust 27, 2001: Restoring the range of light
Utah town goes ‘U.N. free’
Controversial law highlights growing culture clash in Utah’s land of Dixie
Posted inAugust 27, 2001: Restoring the range of light
Showdown on the Nevada range
Ranchers trespass on public lands, says the BLM
Posted inAugust 27, 2001: Restoring the range of light
Dear Friends
About this issue Writers for this special issue about the Forest Service’s Framework for the Sierra Nevada’s 11 national forests researched and wrote their stories while taking a course in environmental journalism with Ed and Betsy Marston, the publisher and then-editor of High Country News. The couple taught the course at the Graduate School of […]
Posted inAugust 27, 2001: Restoring the range of light
Restoring the Range of Light
In California, the Forest Service sets fires, protects big trees and owls, and leaves loggers in the lurch
Posted inAugust 13, 2001: No refuge in the Klamath Basin
Montana tribes drive the road to sovereignty
PABLO, Mont. – Most roads leading to Indian reservations in Montana run through stark, lonely country. Things are different on the Flathead Reservation, home of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. Highway 93 is the busiest and most dangerous two-lane road in the state, and 56 miles of it traverses the reservation, beginning about 12 […]
Posted inAugust 13, 2001: No refuge in the Klamath Basin
Invasive invaders
On a rainy spring day in western Oregon, five volunteers, clad in raingear and heavy work gloves, slowly work their way up the southeast flank of Mount Pisgah, a tract of private land looming above the Willamette River. Led by Kyra Kelly of the nonprofit Friends of Buford Park and Mount Pisgah, the volunteers cut […]
Posted inAugust 13, 2001: No refuge in the Klamath Basin
Disappearing cowboys get exposure
Each spring, photographer Adam Jahiel leaves his home in northeast Wyoming and treks to the remotest corners of the Great Basin to photograph cowboys on their annual roundups. The seasonal journey has become a 10-year personal quest. Jahiel, whose photos have appeared in The New York Times and National Geographic among others, says he is […]
Posted inAugust 13, 2001: No refuge in the Klamath Basin
On the trail of an exotic ‘native’
Long considered an “exotic” species, wild horses occupy a sort of borderland, caught between the mythology of their origins and the reality of their plight today. This is the subject of a new documentary, El Caballo, by Drury Gunn Carr and Doug Hawes-Davis. Known for their hard-hitting documentary films, Varmints (HCN,10/26/98: Varmints) and Killing Coyote […]
Posted inAugust 13, 2001: No refuge in the Klamath Basin
Predators keep their pelts
COLORADO In Colorado, three species of fur-bearing predators will hold onto their skins for a little longer. In its July meeting, the Colorado Wildlife Commission decided to not allow live-cage trapping and shooting seasons for the swift fox, pine marten and opossum. Commission chair Rick Enstrom, who cast the tie vote which killed the Colorado […]
Posted inAugust 13, 2001: No refuge in the Klamath Basin
Blackfeet bet on wind
MONTANA Montana’s Blackfeet Nation is a step ahead in the race to generate new, renewable sources of power. Using two of its most abundant natural resources – land and wind – the 15,000-member tribe is partnering with a private wind-power firm to build the first large-scale wind-energy project on tribal land. Blackfeet WindPower One is […]
Posted inAugust 13, 2001: No refuge in the Klamath Basin
Court helps candidates
NATION More than 200 wildlife and plant species have waited years for a spot on the federal endangered species list. A recent court decision could soon put an end to their wait. On June 20, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a 1996 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ban on citizen petitions to list […]
Posted inAugust 13, 2001: No refuge in the Klamath Basin
The Latest Bounce
The Forest Service’s fire czar has big plans. On July 23, National Fire Plan Coordinator Lyle Laverty told the Missoulian that his agency cannot “let nature take its course.” Though the National Fire Plan was initially touted as an effort to thin overgrown forests near towns and homes, Laverty said the Forest Service needs to […]
Posted inAugust 13, 2001: No refuge in the Klamath Basin
The man in the rubber boots
In the Land of IrrigationWhere the Desert blossoms as the roseThere dwells a Knight in armorWhom everyone loves that knows.He guides the little streamletsTo the famished stems and roots,He carries life in his shovel –The man in the rubber boots From “The Man in the Rubber Boots”by Agnes Just Reid (1947) When it rains in […]
Posted inAugust 13, 2001: No refuge in the Klamath Basin
Heard around the West
Oh, Smokey Bear, what have they done to you now? Smokey has a new day job. If you visit the lobby of the Forest Service’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., you can see the agency’s famous spokesbear, looking, perhaps, like one of the bureaucrats upstairs. The plump bear lounges at a rolltop desk, his feet crossed […]