Writers on the Range

The 1986 High Country News index beginning on page 8 lists hundreds of individual stories, but all are about the same question: the use and control of the land. Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/19.1/download-entire-issue

With the closure of Friends of the Earth’s western Colorado office in Palisade and its branch offices in Tucson, Ariz., Crested Butte, Colo., and Moab, Utah, FOE’s 17-year conservation program in the intermountain West is now history. Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/18.24/download-entire-issue

“The world is older, bigger and more interesting than we are. Growth is the enemy. Every organism grows to optimum space, then stops.” If it doesn’t, he says, it’s a freak, which means our overblown and overdone technological civilization is headed for a great explosion, followed by collapse. “That’s why I’m an optimist.” Download entire […]

The choice by Kennecott and Asarco to clean up their smelters early on rather than be pushed out because of pollution shows that reduced livestock and logging industries can also survive — but only if they adapt. Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/18.14/download-entire-issue

The lion now crouched directly in front of the truck, staring at me … Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/18.11/download-entire-issue

Electrical utilities, water agencies, gas companies, nuclear reactor builders and multinational oil giants all share a volatile and difficult future. Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/18.6/download-entire-issue

Since 1976, biologists have attributed 90 percent of Yellowstone National Park’s grizzly bear mortality to Fishing Bridge, which contains a 308-unit campground and a 358-unit recreational vehicle park. Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/18.5/download-entire-issue

Unless the trashing and privatization stops, the intermountain Rockies will never escape their feudal social and economic situation. Those who now control the land and the land managers don’t have a glimmer of how to lead the region out of its downward slide. Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/18.3/download-entire-issue

Things are grim if you identify the vigor of the environmental movement with the major groups — but they are not the movement. Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/18.2/download-entire-issue

Many people misunderstand the role of the rancher who grazes cattle or sheep on public land. Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/17.24/download-entire-issue

A mere 2 percent of the nation’s cattle are consuming the Western public lands that belong to all Americans. So abused are these lands that many millions of acres are only one-tenth as productive as in pre-settlement times. Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/17.24/download-entire-issue

The desert grasslands of southern Idaho once supported a vast population of antelope, buffalo, deer, elk, moose, grizzly bear and wolves before settlers moved in during the 1840s. Where is all the wildlife today? Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/17.24/download-entire-issue

Sadly for both the towns and for progressive editors, the times are changing much faster in these towns than the local cultures. It is highly unlikely that these cultures can adapt, even though their survival is at stake. Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/17.23/download-entire-issue

The only way the Indian tribes can guarantee posterity is to protect and preserve their lands from despoliation, which will require conservation of their water resources. Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/17.22/download-entire-issue

Sometimes it seems that the BLM purposely chooses the worst possible field management, or no management whatsoever, in an attempt to attract public attention. Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/17.20/download-entire-issue

If compound 1080 again comes into wide use, the inevitable abuses that will follow could mean the end of livestock grazing on public lands. Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/17.13/download-entire-issue

Trends in visitor use, lackadaisical management, shoestring funding levels and political motivations have all contributed to a failure to control overuse. To read the full text, click on the “View a PDF from the original” link below (shorter download), or download a PDF of the entire issue: http://www.hcn.org/issues/17.10/download-entire-issue This article appeared in the print edition […]

The people living through western Colorado’s energy boom and bust over the last five years are still bewildered. Most say it was a period of heady euphoria followed by thousands of personal tragedies that stunned the region. Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/17.7/download-entire-issue

The Navajo Tribe’s decision to build another mammoth coal-fired plant in the Four Corners area is a hard blow to what has been a natural alliance. Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/17.6/download-entire-issue

Some conservationists think the land swap is designed to benefit mining and drilling companies. But industry, perhaps because it’s been burned by earlier administration initiatives, is not speaking strongly in support. Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/17.3/download-entire-issue