Letter to the editor

Dear HCN, John Wesley Powell was undoubtedly a giant in the exploration of, and proposals for, Western lands. The essay by William deBuys tells us that if we’d have listened to Powell, we might not have clear-cut forests and disenfranchised local communities (HCN, 4/12/99). In fact, we would have no national forests, and what forests […]

Dear HCN, After reading Tom Reed’s article on purposeful wildlife trapping and accidental pet dog trapping, all I can say to your headline, “Is trapping doomed?” is – not soon enough (HCN, 4/12/99). It is directly due to the activities of trappers that we now have species in trouble, like the wolf, bear, cougar, lynx, […]

Thank you for the marvelous huge feature on Tucson development (HCN, 1/18/99). However, I was chagrined to see the quote from Supervisor Mike Boyd, who has been opposed for years to anti-growth measures, and only under great pressure did indeed advocate the Sonoran Desert Protection Plan. During his last election cycle, Boyd came to our […]

Dear HCN, I read with dismay Tony Davis’ article, “Plans for a new park in Arizona” (HCN, 3/29/99) on the movement to create a “Sonoran Desert National Park,” by combining Organ Pipe National Monument, Cabeza-Prieta National Wildlife Refuge and the Barry M. Goldwater Air Force Range. This proposal looks to me like another grandiose scheme […]

Dear HCN, Susan Ewing’s essay on the sins of owning a ranchette in Bozeman, Mont., is typical of the self-serving confessionals I’ve grown to expect from baby boomers who lack the integrity to live up to the principles they espouse (HCN, 5/10/99). For environmentalists like Ewing, the movement isn’t about protecting ecological systems, it’s about […]

Dear HCN, Thanks for your feature on ecological restoration (-Working the Land Back to Health,” HCN, 3/1/99). However, as an ardent conservationist and a small business owner, I was annoyed by Ed Marston’s introduction. “In a time of tight public money,” he writes, “restoration depends on creating economies that can produce healthy land and profits, […]

Dear HCN, I want to thank writer Lynne Bama for her story on land trades, and particularly for showing the connection between 19th-century land grabs and the present-day subsidization of corporations through exchanges (HCN, 3/29/99). Lynne called me a “one-woman truth squad,” which I took as a compliment, but which belies the efforts of scores […]

Dear HCN, While Andy Wiessner did many environmentally heroic deeds in the past when he was counsel for the House Interior Committee, such as making sure that the California Wilderness Bill included many key lands in the Trinity Alps Wilderness, he seems to have let the big money his consulting work brings in color his […]

Dear HCN, Readers of Andy Wiessner’s letter about land exchanges (HCN, 5/10/99) might have been better able to evaluate his criticisms of Janine Blaeloch and the Western Land Exchange Project had he acknowledged that he was a consultant to Plum Creek Timber Co. on the Interstate 90 exchange. Yes, the I-90 exchange will result in […]

Dear HCN, Is trapping doomed? (HCN, 4/12/99). Of course it is. When decent people like Liz Kehr and Kevin Feist are forced to haggle over how many days animals should remain in traps before they are bludgeoned to death or whether trappers should post signs to warn the public of their dangerous and cowardly practices, […]

Dear HCN, It is my policy not to comment on news coverage of me, but in this case I have to correct the record. A letter you mailed out to potential readers with the lead article on The Wildlands Project seriously distorts history (HCN, 4/26/88). I did not ever agree to not “speak out about […]

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 […]

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 – […]

Rachel Odell’s article about the whitewater boating ban in Yellowstone National Park missed the heart of the issue: The standard for use in our national parks which was established by the National Park Service Organic Act in 1916 implies that as long as a use does not damage the resource, the National Park Service should […]

Dear HCN, While the Air Force is busy in Nevada, giving lip service and meeting time to ecosystem management and touchy-feely sound bites, it is forging right ahead with the destruction of the Owyhee Canyonlands of Idaho (HCN, 3/15/99). No matter that a broad coalition of public-interest groups and a majority of Idaho citizens oppose […]

Dear HCN, Talk about stupidity! The trapping and relocation of lynx from their natural habitat in northern Canada to Colorado has to top the list (HCN, 2/15/99). Most people in the Colorado Division of Wildlife have never seen a lynx, let alone have much knowledge of how they live, but because they were pressured by […]

Dear HCN, The articles about the Trout Creek Mountains in the March 1 edition of High Country News overlooked a key player, the American taxpayer (HCN, 3/1/99). The Bureau of Land Management addressed this effort as a “must not be allowed to fail” demonstration grazing project. Funding was redirected to the tune of about $500 […]

Dear HCN, Tom Knudson’s story on the Trout Creek working group in Oregon lacked some important factual information that would have cast the “success’ of this BLM propaganda project in a less favorable light (HCN, 3/1/99). The article implies that the Trout Creeks can serve as a model solution for public-lands grazing disputes across the […]

Dear HCN, In Dustin Solberg’s story about alternative forest products on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation – where one-third of the people live below the poverty line – I was angered by the author’s comment, “whether (earnings from the sale of coneflowers are) spent on school clothes or 12-packs, everyone seems to like the new […]

Dear HCN, In response to Michael Cohen’s letter, (HCN, 3/l/99), Mr. Cohen needn’t worry about recreational fun-hogs filling the Escalante River Canyons. Aside from Coyote Gulch being overrun, in my 28 years of backpacking the Escalante River, I have never seen more than a handful of people, and most of them were up Death Hollow, […]