Recently, my wife and I were dinner guests in a beautiful home. Like hundreds of others, it’s built in on a forested hill on the edge of the Gallatin National Forest. It is enclosed by trees which nearly brush the house. When a forest fire makes a run up their slope, their house is likely […]
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Planning for an unknown future, the only kind we have, is indeed difficult. For many of us westerners, it’s also vexing. The past we knew and loved is rapidly eroding and what lies ahead is ever more amorphous. The world’s economic integration profoundly effects even the most remote and traditional ranching valleys. Throughout the Rockies […]
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This summer’s fires kindled examinations of federal fire policy-but most folks failed. The problems bequeathed by a century of poor forest management have no easy solution such as more logging and road building. And Smokey the Bear’s “Only you can prevent forest fires,” mantra, the world’s most successful public relations campaign, exacerbates the problem. Western […]
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Ed Marston, editor of High Country News, a regional paper published in Paonia, Colorado proclaims in the April 10, 2000 issue: “The war between extractive interests and the environmental movement for control of the Interior West’s public lands is drawing to a close. The timber era, the cattle era, the mainstem big-dam era, the wise […]
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National politicians, like other mega-predators, continually seek niches to exploit. With gasoline prices nearing $2.00 per gallon, Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) offers a prime example of an exploitable political opportunity. Environmentalists have a rare opportunity to take advantage of this situation. Here’s how. On March 9th, US senators Frank Murkowski (R-AK) and Ted […]
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My wife Ramona and I just returned from a mini-vacation on a ranch in the foothills of the Beartooth Range. It reminded us of the remarkably hard work accomplished by the homesteaders, of their poverty, and today’s easy living. Consider our history and try to imagine how pleased and excited we were when several of […]
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Those of us working to preserve wildlife habitat and open space will be more successful when we grasp a key principle; all resources, including land, gravitate toward highest valued uses. With agricultural prices nearing historical lows, the pressures forcing farmers and ranchers out of agriculture are increasing. Although some people may object to this claim, […]
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“Much mischief comes from mixing politics with higher education.” Great Falls Tribune, 14 February 1919 Jim Twiford, President of the Wyoming State Senate, recently asked the state’s Legislative Service Office to draft a bill eliminating the University of Wyoming’s College of Law. There may well be reasonable arguments supporting such a bill but Mr. Twiford […]
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My physician recently told me; “You have really big hands”. He may be right for his data comes from observing academics, computer people, accountants, and lawyers. But compared with those with whom I worked a generation ago, he’s flat wrong. However, his observation is a useful benchmark of our changing West. We used to move […]
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Modernization, the replacement of machines for muscle, is a universal social solvent. Even when resisted by traditional leaders, modernization erodes established social, economic patterns, and threatens ecosystems. As my friend Reverend Glover Wagner recently observed in another context, “The mind rebels at such a thought, but that’s the way God wired the universe”. The reason […]
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