I was appalled to read your recent puff piece about the Bea-Lang house being constructed in a critical place in my home, the Columbia River Gorge (HCN, 2/15/99). Your supposedly objective article claims “a big house slipped through” protections enacted by Congress in 1986. Nonsense. This monstrosity is not an anomaly but the norm – […]
The gorge has been given away
Posted inMay 10, 1999: My beautiful ranchette
Land swaps: the real story
As one who makes a living on federal land exchanges and Land and Water Conservation Fund purchases, I was disappointed in Lynne Bama’s story on land exchanges (HCN, 3/29/99). Two exchanges which came in for heavy criticism in the article were the Huckleberry and Plum Creek exchanges in Washington state. The criticisms stemmed mainly from […]
Posted inMay 10, 1999: My beautiful ranchette
Speaking out for God’s forests
To discuss the state of the nation’s forests last year, the Religious Campaign for Forest Conservation met for several days on the California coast in the shadow of giant redwood forests. The campaign leaders emerged with a unified voice, calling for an end to the logging of old-growth forests and an end to commercial logging […]
Posted inMay 10, 1999: My beautiful ranchette
Conservation Voices
Conservation Voices has a new look. This revamped bi-monthly magazine of the Soil and Water Conservation Society most recently profiled a handful of landowners across the nation who’ve successfully restored their land. A six-issue subscription costs $15; contact Soil and Water Conservation Society, 7515 NE Ankeny Road, Ankeny, IA 50021-9764 (515/289-2331). This article appeared in […]
Posted inMay 10, 1999: My beautiful ranchette
Fellowship for Environmental Conflict Resolution on the U.S.-Mexico Border
The Ford Foundation/Udall Center Fellowship for Environmental Conflict Resolution on the U.S.-Mexico Border offers a paid opportunity to research, teach and write for a year on work pertaining to environmental conflict resolution. For more information, contact Robert Merideth at the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy, University of Arizona, 803/811 E. First St., Tucson, […]
Posted inMay 10, 1999: My beautiful ranchette
www.headwatersnews.org
Log onto the World Wide Web, type www.headwatersnews.org, and discover a single source for updates on environmental and community issues from the Rocky Mountains of the United States and Canada. The free Web site links the reader directly to Web sites of the original news sources, which are most often daily newspapers. It is a […]
Posted inMay 10, 1999: My beautiful ranchette
High Altitude Revegetation Field Tour
If you join a free High Altitude Revegetation Field Tour in northern New Mexico from July 29-30, you can visit reclaimed mines, explore ancient archaeological sites at the Pecos National Monument, and dine on traditional Santa Fe food. The sponsor is Colorado State University’s Department of Soil and Crop Science. For more information, contact Gary […]
Posted inMay 10, 1999: My beautiful ranchette
Fishtrap writers’ conference
At a rustic camp on the shores of Oregon’s Wallowa Lake, writers gather at the annual Fishtrap writers’ conference. This year’s theme is “Borders,” and teachers include historian Susan Armitage, novelist Craig Lesley, and poet Richard Garcia. For details about the June 27-July 2 workshops or July 2-4 gathering, contact Fishtrap, P.O. Box 38, Enterprise, […]
Posted inMay 10, 1999: My beautiful ranchette
Sheep is Life
-Sheep is Life” brings weavers and shepherds together for traditional Navajo food, livestock exhibits and workshops in fiber arts and range management. The June 24-26 event at Diné College in Tsaile, Ariz., is free and open to the public. Contact Diné bÆ’ ÆÆna’, P.O. Box 539, Ganado, AZ 86505 (520/755-3266), www.recursos.org/sheepislife. This article appeared in […]
Posted inMay 10, 1999: My beautiful ranchette
Photography and the Old West
Asa-Ton-Yeh, a Comanche chief, photographed by William S. Soule in 1868, is part of the exhibit Photography and the Old West, a collection of 80 photographs from the second half of the 19th century. The show at the Anasazi Heritage Center in Dolores, Colo., runs through May 31; contact Michael Williams, 970/882-4811, for more information. […]
Posted inMay 10, 1999: My beautiful ranchette
Opening lines of communication
To help keep locals informed about environmental issues on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada in California, a lone activist has spun an electronic web. The Eastern Sierra Agenda Network was founded by Elizabeth Tenney, a member of Preserving the Eastern Sierra Tradition of Environmental Responsibility (PESTER for short). This list-serve, a free electronic […]
Posted inMay 10, 1999: My beautiful ranchette
Less climbing to the top
The Mount Hood National Forest has traditionally been a weekend haven for many Oregonians, but it might not be for long. The three wilderness areas that lie within the forest have eight times as many visitors as they did 10 years ago, and an average of 900 hikers crowd the Mount Hood Wilderness Area during […]
Posted inMay 10, 1999: My beautiful ranchette
A bigger picture
Utah’s Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument needs to think of itself in the context of a wider world. That’s the conclusion of Crown of the Canyons, an atlas of colored maps and data on the ecology, geology and economy of the monument and its surrounding landscape, compiled by the Wilderness Society. The monument’s 1.9 million acres […]
Posted inMay 10, 1999: My beautiful ranchette
Caution: Desert Tortoise Crossing
If a desert tortoise crosses your path and you don’t mind your manners, you could face fines of up to $100,000 or one year in jail. Due to urbanization and development, the animal, listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, has lost an extensive amount of its habitat in Arizona, California, Nevada and southern […]
Posted inMay 10, 1999: My beautiful ranchette
State says no to new wildlife
The next time the federal or state government wants to reintroduce wildlife on public lands in Colorado, the state Legislature wants it to ask nicely. On April 22 – Earth Day – Colorado Gov. Bill Owens signed the measure requiring the Legislature’s consent before agencies can restore threatened and endangered species to the state. Critics […]
Posted inMay 10, 1999: My beautiful ranchette
Wanted: HCPs with teeth
NATION Wanted: HCPs with teeth To win cooperation from landowners, over the last decade the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has embraced Habitat Conservation Plans for saving endangered species on private lands (HCN, 8/4/97). It’s an effective alternative to a “shoot, shovel and shut up” approach, say agency representatives. Critics continue to insist that the […]
Posted inMay 10, 1999: My beautiful ranchette
The Wayward West
In what critics call political “shenanigans,” Utah Republican Rep. Jim Hansen stole the bill number from a wilderness proposal. H.R. 1500 has traditionally been the number for the Utah Wilderness Coalition’s wilderness bill (HCN, 8/3/98). But environmentalists withdrew the bill this winter in order to update it, and Hansen introduced his own H.R. 1500. His […]
Posted inMay 10, 1999: My beautiful ranchette
Beware of orange clouds
Earth-shattering explosions are a fact of life in northeast Wyoming’s Powder River Basin. Each week millions of pounds of explosives are detonated as the basin’s 17 open-pit mines rearrange thick layers of earth and extract the coal beneath. Sometimes blasting also creates clouds of nitrogen oxide gases. Luann Borgialli was alarmed in January when one […]
Posted inMay 10, 1999: My beautiful ranchette
Another plug to pull?
The Sierra Club has a new campaign: It wants to restore the valley John Muir called “Yosemite’s twin.” But California’s Hetch Hetchy Valley, once part of Yosemite National Park, is presently buried under 360,000 acre-feet of water. Resurrecting the valley would require draining the reservoir that the San Fransisco area taps for its primary water […]
Posted inMay 10, 1999: My beautiful ranchette
Spinning back the bison
The trouble with being a handspinner is that people are always giving me bags of fiber: a plastic bag full of hair from their ever-shedding malemute; a paper sack containing coarse waxy hanks of hair from a pet Angora goat. I never turn them down. Most handspinners are hoarders by nature; we go to fiber […]