Dear HCN, Thanks to HCN and Jim Robbins for the fine piece on the Columbia River Pastoral Letter Project (“Holy Water,” HCN, 9/11/00: Holy Water). The pastoral letter is a good example of what some have called the “greening” of the Christian Church. Other efforts to make Christianity more “earth friendly” are under way among […]
Churches greening none too soon
Posted inOctober 23, 2000: Stalking Slade
A cheer for the Church
Dear HCN, Concerning Jim Robbins’ “Holy Water”: It is very good to see the Catholic Church taking some more specific steps (in the Columbia River basin pastoral letter) toward applying the ideas in Renewing the Earth (HCN, 9/11/00: Excerpts from the pastoral letter draft). I would like to set the record straight, however (or at […]
Posted inOctober 23, 2000: Stalking Slade
Environmentalists for Bush
Dear HCN, As the nation prepares for the upcoming presidential election, it is so sad to read about the formation of the group “Environmentalists Against Gore” (HCN, 8/28/00: The Latest Bounce). If this group succeeds in what must be its goal, we will get George W. Bush as our next president. If this is what […]
Posted inOctober 23, 2000: Stalking Slade
America’s Parks – America’s People: A Mosaic in Motion II
America’s national parks are usually associated with their diverse wildlife. But the Park Service and the National Parks Conservation Association think human diversity is important as well. The two groups will sponsor an event called America’s Parks – America’s People: A Mosaic in Motion II, from Nov. 8-12 in Santa Fe, N.M. The event will […]
Posted inOctober 23, 2000: Stalking Slade
Carnivores 2000
Scientists, land managers, educators and advocates will discuss predator conservation and biology at Defenders of Wildlife’s three-day “Carnivores 2000” conference in Denver, Nov. 12-15. Register online at www.defenders.org or call 202/789-2844, ext. 315. This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Carnivores 2000.
Posted inOctober 23, 2000: Stalking Slade
Powder River Basin Resource Council
Wyoming’s small-mine law exempts mines 10 acres or less from environmental quality permits and notification of adjacent landowners. The law is the focus of Powder River Basin Resource Council‘s annual meeting, Oct. 28 in Casper, Wyo. For information, call 307/358-5002. This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Powder River […]
Posted inOctober 23, 2000: Stalking Slade
Click for conservation
Maybe there is still no such thing as a free lunch, but a new Web site called EcologyFund.com lets users conserve land at no cost. Each time a visitor to the site clicks on a corporate sponsor’s advertisement, the sponsor donates half a cent to one of six land-trust projects. The pennies add up: In […]
Posted inOctober 23, 2000: Stalking Slade
Where cultures collide
Travelers on Route I-84 may speed past Ontario, Ore., with nary a glance. But the decision not to stop at this agricultural center is their loss, because the town houses one of the best historical and cultural centers in the West. The Four Rivers Cultural Center celebrates the confluence of cultures in the Western Treasure […]
Posted inOctober 23, 2000: Stalking Slade
‘biles get the boot
A final winter use plan for Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks takes a hard line on snowmobiles. If approved, the plan will allow van-like snowcoaches on park roads, but will ban snowmobiles completely by the winter of 2003-2004. It’s a marked change from the draft plan, released last winter, that would have allowed snowmobiles […]
Posted inOctober 23, 2000: Stalking Slade
Pilot finds a soft spot for a hard land
Under the Sun: A Sonoran Desert Odyssey, by Adriel Heisey. Treasure Chest Books, P.O. Box 5250, Tucson, AZ 85703 (520/623-9558). Hardcover: $40. 114 pages. Flying his ultralight airplane high above the Sonoran Desert, Adriel Heisey found an appreciation for an alien landscape. A former commercial pilot, Heisey moved to Tucson on a whim, and at […]
Posted inOctober 23, 2000: Stalking Slade
Birds break boundaries
The Colorado state office of The Nature Conservancy has worked for years to preserve chunks of the state’s shortgrass prairie, breeding grounds for birds such as mountain plovers, burrowing owls and long-billed curlews. But staffers always knew their efforts in Colorado could provide only part-time protection, since most of these species travel south during the […]
Posted inOctober 23, 2000: Stalking Slade
Mapping a vision
Although local environmental groups often know their immediate surroundings in detail, there’s a bigger picture available. The State of the Southern Rockies Ecosystem, a report released by the Nederland, Colo.-based Southern Rockies Ecosystem Project, inventories much of three states – Colorado, northern New Mexico and southern Wyoming – that compose an ecoregion, an area with […]
Posted inOctober 23, 2000: Stalking Slade
The power of vision and memory
Messages from Frank’s Landing: A Story of Salmon, Treaties, and the Indian Way, by Charles Wilkinson. Illustrated with maps by Diane Sylvain and black-and-white photographs. University of Washington Press, 2000. Hardcover: $22.50. 128 pages. The dust has long settled from the Northwest’s fishing wars of the late 1960s and ’70s – wars which set Indian […]
Posted inOctober 23, 2000: Stalking Slade
On the trail
If you’re looking for a little financial help with your off-the-grid dream home, don’t look to vice-presidential candidate Dick Cheney. At an Oct. 10 campaign stop at a recreational-vehicle plant in Yakima, Wash., Cheney said, “You have a solar panel on your house, you get tax relief. If you drive a solar-powered car, you get […]
Posted inOctober 23, 2000: Stalking Slade
Mudfest debacle muddies off-roaders’ future
COLORADO Boulder, Colo., disc jockeys “Willie B” and “D Mack” were just looking for a good time when they invited KBPI listeners to join them with four-wheel drive vehicles at Caribou Flats, west of Boulder, on Sept. 23. But by the end of “Mudfest,” their unofficial gathering, 200 off-road vehicles had driven through a 25-acre […]
Posted inOctober 23, 2000: Stalking Slade
Council guns down ban on predator hunts
ARIZONA In 1998, an Arizona contest called “Predator Hunt Extreme” offered $10,000 to the person who killed the most coyotes, bobcats, foxes and mountain lions. Public outcry against the event and multiple petitions from both hunters and wildlife advocates convinced the state Game and Fish Commission to propose a ban on such killing contests. But […]
Posted inOctober 23, 2000: Stalking Slade
The Berkeley Pit gets deeper
MONTANA Skyrocketing electricity prices in Montana are indirectly raising the level of Butte’s Berkeley Pit, a 900-foot-deep, 30 billion-gallon soup of acid-mine runoff that ranks as the nation’s largest Superfund site. In mid-July, copper-mining company Montana Resources suddenly halted its Butte operations, blaming high electrical rates for the shutdown. During normal operations, the mine is […]
Posted inOctober 23, 2000: Stalking Slade
Libertarian is Chenoweth’s heir apparent
IDAHO The man who could succeed Idaho’s feisty Republican Rep. Helen Chenoweth-Hage is in hot water with the Environmental Protection Agency. C.L. “Butch” Otter says he recently dug weeds, cattails, rusty car bodies and concrete from the border of a pond next to his home to make the pond more hospitable to wildlife. But the […]
Posted inOctober 23, 2000: Stalking Slade
Water runs through a congressional race
SOUTH DAKOTA A man who helped rewrite South Dakota’s environmental history is aiming for the U.S. House of Representatives. Democrat Curt Hohn, 49, of Aberdeen, learned about politics while working for Sen. George McGovern in the early 1970s. Hohn and McGovern parted ways in 1974 over a mammoth water project. With a price tag between […]
Posted inOctober 23, 2000: Stalking Slade
The Latest Bounce
The Immigration and Naturalization Service has a plan to curb illegal immigration between Naco and Douglas, Ariz. It includes stadium lights, steel fences, roads and video surveillance cameras, which an INS study says won’t affect endangered wildlife along the U.S.-Mexico border (HCN, 9/27/99: Battered Borderlands). The Center for Biological Diversity disputes the agency’s study and […]