The Magazine

Wildlife biologists, environmentalists and Western politicians are engaged in a fierce debate over whether two decades of protection have so restored Yellowstone’s grizzly population that the animal ought to be removed from the endangered species list.

Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber, D, is determined to solve difficult problems – such as the recovery of his state’s wild coastal coho salmon – at the state level, through consensus.

The grassroots environmental group Amigos Bravos seeks consensus in the mostly Hispanic communities along the Rio Costilla in southern Colorado and northern New Mexico, where there is never enough water to go around.

Democrat Harry Reid brings a reputation for integrity, a record of environmentalism, and the toughness he kept from his hardscrabble Western upbringing into a challenging race for a third term as a U.S. Senator from Nevada.

In the leading article of this essay issue, a writer says that nature writing is about much more than nature – it is about community, morality, character and hope as well.

Washington’s Okanogan County is divided between those who support Battle Mountain Gold’s planned Buckhorn Mtn. mine for its economic promise, and local and Native American activists fighting what they see as impending ecological disaster.

One in six Westerners now lives in a trailer, but this traditionally affordable housing can become an expensive trap, as tougher zoning pushes trailers into crowded parks with ever-increasing rents and regulations.

Using legal and financial savvy and the latest computer technology, Indian tribes across the West are taking control of tribal lands that have been in the hands of the federal government and, often, non-Indian farmers for the last century.

Wyoming’s brand of insider politics is keeping the state in thrall to extractive industries and out of step with the rest of the West.

The new report, “Water in the West: The Challenge for the Next Century,” is a remarkably far-sighted federal study that should serve as both a mission statement and a wake-up call about water management in the arid West.

Bison have made a remarkable recovery from near extinction a century ago, but now the animal’s growing popularity as livestock raises questions about whether it can remain a “wild” animal.

The exotic woody shrub known as tamarisk or saltcedar has infested the West’s river systems, but scientists are divided over how to fight it, or whether it is even possible to do so in a degraded landscape.

The many newsletters put out by small environmental grassroots groups reveal a West that is complex, quirky and deeply committed.

An HCN special issue says that the old extractive West is on its deathbed.

Utah’s remote and little known Book Cliffs area seemed ripe for preservation under an innovative, locally grown initiative – until oilman Oscar Wyatt stepped in to challenge it.

The founders of the Southwest Center for Biological Diversity – Robin Silver, Kieran Suckling and Peter Galvin – are uncompromising and obsessive in their goal of preserving endangered species.

An introduction to the issue points out that Salt Lake City’s intense and seemingly uncontrolled growth actually stems from deliberately planning – both to develop the city and to prepare for the Olympics.

The management of wild horses on Montana’s Pryor Mountain’s Wild Horse Range is caught between the love Americans have for the animal and the concern some environmentalists have for the impact it has on the land.

A ranching family’s desire to develop a road to an inholding in Arizona’s Arrastra Mounain Wilderness is a microcosm of the huge and unwieldy problem of inholdings on public lands throughout the West.

An unusual new book put out by the U.S. Geological Survey, “Dams and Rivers: A Primer on the Downstream Effects of Dams,” is reviewed by Tom Knudson.