After a trial full of grisly detail, a jury found Oregon resident Jack Lee Harelson guilty of looting an Indian burial cave in Nevada. Although the crime was too old to prosecute under the federal Archaeological Resources Protection Act, the state of Oregon convicted him on state charges of theft, abusing a corpse and tampering […]
Communities
Posted inFebruary 5, 1996: Lack of enchantment: Santa Fe's boom goes flat
Lack of enchantment
Santa Fe’s boom goes flat
Posted inFebruary 5, 1996: Lack of enchantment: Santa Fe's boom goes flat
The thing about the West is that every jerk is figuring out how to rip up the landscape, and the laws in the West let him
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Lack of enchantment: Santa Fe’s boom goes flat. “The thing about the West is that every jerk is figuring out how to rip up the landscape, and the laws in the West let him.” – Retired East Coast businessman It took several years for […]
Posted inFebruary 5, 1996: Lack of enchantment: Santa Fe's boom goes flat
One man’s good move
My father is impeccably urban. Except for a stint at boarding school in New England and a few summer jobs in the country – he was fired from one for accidentally hoeing the heads off a half-mile-long row of cabbage – he remained in New York almost his entire life. His tastes, his habits of […]
Posted inFebruary 5, 1996: Lack of enchantment: Santa Fe's boom goes flat
Facts take a beating on the range
A New Mexico State University press release saying part of the controversial Diamond Bar allotment was not overgrazed has critics crying “pseudoscience.” The allotment straddling two wilderness areas has been home to squalls among ranchers, the Forest Service, the university, environmentalists and politicians for years (HCN, 7/24/95). In the wake of persistent disagreements, the Forest […]
Posted inJanuary 22, 1996: At Hanford, the real estate is hot
The Northwest’s new economy
THE NORTHWEST’S NEW ECONOMY When the Pacific Northwest’s timber and aerospace industries started declining, some people predicted the region would become the next Appalachia. Instead, the region is thriving, says University of Montana economist Tom Power, whose conclusion is endorsed by 34 other Northwest economists. Growth in earnings, employment and population in Idaho, Montana, Oregon […]
Posted inDecember 25, 1995: Utah hearings misfire
Do-it-yourself preservation
With just a handful of federal agents patrolling millions of square miles of the West, it’s not surprising that looting and vandalism of Indian artifacts are rampant. But with budget cuts portending even less money for enforcement, where will help on the ground come from? One answer is from volunteers, people who give their time […]
Posted inDecember 11, 1995: Hunting: Its place in the West comes under attack
Green fellows
Environmental journalists with at least three years’ experience are invited to apply for a fellowship year at Harvard University. The two selected Nieman fellows – one U.S. and one international – will take undergraduate and graduate classes. They will also meet with distinguished figures from journalism, business, education, the arts and public service. The fellowships […]
Posted inDecember 11, 1995: Hunting: Its place in the West comes under attack
Southwestern writers hit the airwaves
-Every writer has one thing they want, need to work out desperately in their writing … I seem to be dealing with transformation, a way to make sense of, to rectify, a terrible, beautiful history.” * Joy Harjo Joy Harjo, a Creek poet, screenwriter, and saxophonist, is one of 13 Southwestern authors featured in Writing […]
Posted inDecember 11, 1995: Hunting: Its place in the West comes under attack
Revving up rural schools
Without the drama of guns and gangs, the popular media usually leave rural education in a time warp of little red schoolhouses and outdated textbooks. But rural schools, which house one-quarter of the nation’s students and teachers, turned decades ago to interdisciplinary studies, multi-grade classrooms and community- based learning – all “innovations’ being introduced in […]
Posted inNovember 27, 1995: Saving the ranch
Saving the ranch
Can private conservation stave off ski-town sprawl?
Posted inNovember 27, 1995: Saving the ranch
John Fetcher
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Saving the ranch. John Fetcher started his working life as an engineer in Philadelphia before buying a ranch with his brother in the Elk River Valley in 1949. In the 1950s he and three partners began developing the Steamboat Ski Area, which they sold […]
Posted inNovember 27, 1995: Saving the ranch
Rancher’s new cash crop will be scenery
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Saving the ranch. Private conservation efforts in places such as the Elk River Valley may be able to preserve the look of the land. But if ranchers become tenants on property owned by wealthy people from somewhere else, what happens to the culture? “There’s […]
Posted inNovember 27, 1995: Saving the ranch
Trust in the Land
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Saving the ranch. In the scramble to preserve Western open space, land trusts have taken the lead. “I see a lot of people looking at land trusts as a real bridge between environmentalists and landowners,” says Jean Hocker, president of the Washington, D.C.-based Land […]
Posted inNovember 27, 1995: Saving the ranch
Local land-use plan sabotaged by state
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. – At night the lights of Steamboat Springs rise up from the Yampa River Valley by the thousands, advancing east toward Mount Werner like a small army laying siege to the ski lifts. At the eastern edge of town they end abruptly, running up against the dark mass of Emerald Mountain. The […]
Posted inNovember 27, 1995: Saving the ranch
Traffic flow 1, trees 0
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – When the bulldozer smacked a 40-foot-tall cottonwood tree, the tree first wavered and wobbled. Then, a loud crack rang out, and the tree toppled, its bright green leaves crushed as they glistened in the sunlight. This scene was repeated more than a dozen times in mid-October, as the Albuquerque city government started […]
Posted inNovember 13, 1995: Seeing the forest and the trees
Rural reality check
RURAL REALITY CHECK Four years ago, economist Ray Rasker began touring towns in the Greater Yellowstone region with a slideshow. His message: New growth in local economies comes mostly from high tech and service industries, not resource extraction like mining or grazing. Rasker, with The Wilderness Society in Bozeman, Mont., says, “Most people told me, […]
Posted inNovember 13, 1995: Seeing the forest and the trees
Yearning for balance
YEARNING FOR BALANCE Americans find simplicity complicated. According to a recent survey conducted for the Merck Family Fund, a foundation that promotes environmental sustainability, the majority of people questioned said they want to simplify their lives, spend more time with loved ones and consume less. But they have found it’s easier said than done. Although […]
Posted inNovember 13, 1995: Seeing the forest and the trees
The ax falls at the University of Washington
Environmental institute is chopped; other programs cut
Posted inNovember 13, 1995: Seeing the forest and the trees
Silencing science at UW: one researcher’s story
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, The ax falls at the University of Washington, in a special issue about the West’s forestry schools. When the University of Washington offered aquatic biologist Steve Ralph a job in 1989 directing a major new stream-research program, he jumped at the chance. His […]