If you’re feeling assailed by civilization — its cell phones, computers and telemarketers — David Petersen has an antidote for you. But be forewarned: It’s strong medicine. It’s taken Petersen more than two decades to acquire his hard-earned lessons, and the going hasn’t always been smooth. In 1981, he and his wife, Caroline, left behind […]
Growth & Sustainability
Posted inOctober 2, 2006: From the ground up
Roadless returns!
On Sept. 19, U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Laporte reinstated protection for some 50 million acres of roadless national forest land. (Separate rules govern the roughly 9 million roadless acres of Alaska’s Tongass.) Laporte ruled that the Forest Service violated the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act when, in 2005, it repealed President […]
Posted inOctober 2, 2006: From the ground up
Free will flounders in the courts
Judges in Nevada and Montana threw out a handful of libertarian ballot measures in September. Montana State Judge Dirk Sandefur ruled that petition circulators engaged in a “pattern of fraud,” deceiving people into signing the petitions for a trio of ballot measures in that state. The measures sought to limit land-use regulations and taxes, and […]
Posted inOctober 2, 2006: From the ground up
Dottie Fox, one of the greatest old broads
It’s never pleasant to read the obituary of someone you’ve met several times and admired for more years than you can remember. But the several obituaries of wilderness advocate Dottie Fox of Aspen, 86, who died Sept. 11, glowed with admiration for her joie de vivre and effectiveness. As reported by the Rocky Mountain News, […]
Posted inOctober 2, 2006: From the ground up
Online: Web watchdog
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, “Radio: Spice for the ears,” in a special issue about community media in the West. Four years ago, Dave Frazier spent a whole summer in court, suing Boise over the city council’s decision to build an $18 million police station without putting […]
Posted inSeptember 18, 2006: Going Big
A little wild
Percentage of land in each Western state that is federally owned, versus what is designated as wilderness. 47.2 | 6.2 Arizona 45.1 | 14 California 36.2 | 4.8 Colorado 61.6 | 7.5 Idaho 27.9 | 3.6 Montana 83 | 4 Nevada 33.8 | 2.3 New Mexico 52.4 | 3.7 Oregon 62.2 | 1.5 Utah 28.3 […]
Posted inSeptember 18, 2006: Going Big
Is the great federal land debate over?
Every decade or so, people push the idea of selling off big chunks of public land or transferring that land to state ownership and management. Outside of small parcels, it has never happened, probably because most of us support leaving public lands in federal hands. With the recent pronouncements of Idaho’s own Dirk Kempthorne, now […]
Posted inSeptember 4, 2006: Blast from the Past
States crack down on illegal immigrants
Congress punts until after the elections; states turn ‘nativist’
Posted inSeptember 4, 2006: Blast from the Past
Underworld
It was August 1997, and I stood beside a manhole cover at Ninth Avenue and F Street in the border town of Douglas, Ariz., with a small gathering of police detectives, firefighters, and city workers. Cones diverted traffic around us. Frank Garcia, a hazardous-materials technician, knelt and ran a tube through one of the silver-dollar-sized […]
Posted inWotr
Utah legislation endangers lands we hold dear
There’s a bill before Congress that would have far-reaching impacts for my backyard in Utah and could also set a precedent for where you live, especially if you — like me — love the public lands that make the West unique. The legislation is called the Washington County Growth and Conservation Act, sponsored by Utah […]
Posted inWotr
Is the great federal land debate over?
Every decade or so, people start pushing the idea of selling off big chunks of public land or transferring that land to state ownership and management. Outside of small parcels, it has never happened, probably because most of us support leaving public lands in federal hands. With the recent pronouncements of Idaho’s own Dirk Kempthorne, […]
Posted inWotr
Rainbow Gathering lacks one color — green
When we tell folks that we have become the unwitting hosts for the Rainbow Family’s annual gathering, the first response is “the who?” As it turns out, some 20,000 Rainbows have gathered in Big Red Park, north of Steamboat Springs, Colo., in the Routt National Forest. Their Web site, welcomehome.org, styles them “the largest non-organization […]
Posted inWotr
Fencing off Mexico is an ecological blunder
Medical doctors have their Hippocratic oath in which they pledge to heal the sick to the best of their ability and do no harm. We ecologists have our own guiding principle: Call it the Leopold oath. The late Aldo Leopold, who worked for the U.S. Forest Service and is considered to be one of the […]
Posted inWotr
A silent victim of illegal immigration is our public lands
Just three miles north of Arizona’s border with Mexico, the Coronado National Forest is littered with the leavings of people on the run: empty plastic water bottles, opened tuna fish cans, sweatshirts, jars of foot powder. Near a scattered pack of playing cards, some turquoise underwear lies in an undignified tangle. A pair of small […]
Posted inMay 15, 2006: The Immigrant's Trail
Finding hope in a new land
Mexican-born author Rose Castillo Guilbault first saw America from the window of a Greyhound bus. The 5-year-old sat next to her divorced mother, Maria Luisa, who had taken a distant cousin’s advice to heart: Head to El Norte. “Get out of this cesspool. It will pull you down and drown you. You’re still young. Start […]
Posted inMay 15, 2006: The Immigrant's Trail
The Immigrant’s Trail
Note: this essay introduces several feature articles in a special issue about the West’s immigration landscape. Last month, as immigrants and their supporters geared up for the May 1 “Day Without Immigrants,” and the Senate considered another comprehensive immigration bill, an 18-year-old Mexican woman gave birth amid the cactus and mesquite trees of the Arizona […]
Posted inMay 15, 2006: The Immigrant's Trail
Abandonment
Plenty of jobs, not enough pay: Economic forces push Mexican workers north
Posted inMay 15, 2006: The Immigrant's Trail
Perseverance
An immigrant’s journey: Dust, flies, and the long walk
Posted inMay 15, 2006: The Immigrant's Trail
Apprehension
On an 860,000-acre refuge, wildlife officers face a human torrent
