The Forest Service, which Michael Boren now oversees, appears to have abandoned any further enforcement action.
Public lands
Posted inArticles
Permitting reform would de-fang bedrock environmental lawsÂ
Proposed bipartisan legislation would eviscerate laws meant to prevent irreversible environmental destruction.
Posted inArticles
Diné leaders demand the return of Bears Ears, fully intact
‘They call it protection. We call it theft.’
Posted inOctober 2026: Origin Stories
How old battles over land, power and identity continue to shape the West’s politics
Origin stories from an unsettled region.
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The Forest Service is poised to hand off one of the West’s most visited landscapes
Critics say this is a test case for privatizing public lands.
Posted inArticles
How the Interior secretary has let down public lands and the nation
Doug Burgum was once seen as a conservationist. Reality shows otherwise.
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Wyoming chooses public lands at the ballot box
Voters finally felt the threat to public lands had reached a critical point, observers say.
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Tohono O’odham fight border wall on sacred, sovereign lands
The nation is using the courts and lobbying congressional Democrats to stop construction near Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Southern Arizona.
Posted inSeptember 2026: On the Trail with Gary Paul Nabhan
In Arctic Alaska, 1.4 million acres of federal land is shifting to state hands
A cascade of changes is underway along its only northern highway.
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Arctic drilling in Alaska won’t get environmental review in new proposal
The Interior Department will soon publish a ‘categorical exclusion’ that will rubber stamp oil and gas development in Alaska’s remote National Petroleum Reserve.
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The BLM may stop notifying landowners about drilling under private land. Ranchers are alarmed
Western cattlemen are poised to lose almost all opportunity to comment on oil and gas development underneath their property.
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Mining execs bought big in company stock days before Bears Ears’ cuts
House Democrats have opened an investigation for insider trading.
Posted inAugust 2026: The Conversations Issue
The conversations we don’t have about safety outdoors
History instructs Black Americans to fear the outdoors. But creating new memories outside will inform our future.
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What’s destroying Utah’s monuments
The administration wants to open 3 million acres to mining claims and oil and gas leasing at the expense of the landscape.
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A ban on chainsaws in wilderness is performative, not practical
An experienced trail crew leader argues that, in today’s forests, the rigidity of the regulation buries what it’s designed to protect.
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The conflict over permanent climbing anchors in wilderness
Climbers concerned about safety are pitted against wilderness advocates worried about overcrowding and unfettered bolting.
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Pueblo leaders, New Mexico lawmakers speak out to protect Chaco Canyon
Officials call push to remove an oil and gas buffer around the culturally critical monument ‘an absolute gut punch.’
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A new section of the billion-dollar border wall in Arizona is bent out of shape
At least four panels of the wall in the San Rafael Valley were mysteriously damaged months before a controversy-plagued contractor even finished construction.
Posted inSeptember 2026: On the Trail with Gary Paul Nabhan
Bears Ears cuts also end first-of-its-kind tribal land commissionÂ
A presidential proclamation slashed the monument by 90% despite a promise to involve tribes.
Posted inArticles
Feds transfer grizzly bear management to states
After 20-year controversy and numerous court battles, the Trump administration declared grizzlies recovered despite public lands rollbacks.