Eight of the ten fastest-growing US states are in the West. Much new residential development is occurring in fire-prone areas close to federal public lands. This is known as the “wildland-urban interface.” These new residential areas are popular due to their proximity to the environmental quality and natural amenities offered by national forests, parks, and […]
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Here’s a book describing 20,000+ hippies, New Agers, and camp followers descending on an isolated rural community. Imagine a conservative federal district judge conducting a “jury view” of the site to settle conflicts between state public health rules and First Amendment constitutional rights to peacefully assemble in a national forest. “Judge Dave and the Rainbow […]
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Social movements, like ecosystems, evolve. Although many challenges remain, there is little doubt that Americans have changed the way they think about the environment. In some cases, the results are dramatic. For example, in the 1960s the U.S. Navy occasionally used whales for target practice. A quarter century later, the Navy spent over a million […]
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Forestry, one of Montana’s traditional industries faces rough times. With continued demands for environmental quality and rejection of the negative consequences of resource extraction, what is the future of our state’s timber economy and the communities which rely upon it? Unfortunately for this industry, the future ain’t what it was. Here are six reasons why. […]
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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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The fall colors have peaked and the elk are bulging in nearby Yellowstone National Park. About 3 million people a year visit Yellowstone. The end of this tourist season gives a reprieve to the park’s crumbling infrastructure. This spring ground water penetrated leaky sewage lines and threatened to overflow a treatment pond. Park crews pumped […]
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Today’s wilderness preservation movement exemplifies a remarkable convergence of radically different ideas. Here¹s an example, one of many. It features the ideas of libertarian economists and green activists. Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman is the champion of those who envision a minimalist government. Among his radical proposals is to sell the National Forests. His 1962 […]
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Forest conservationists have a love-hate relationship with the Forest Service. Created to protect Western forests from the dangers of irresponsible private sector management, the Forest Service promised an efficient, responsive, and scientific approach. But things didn’t turn out that way. Despite the rhetoric of “multiple use”, political planning prevailed. That process encouraged, and often forced, […]
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Forest conservationists have a love-hate relationship with the Forest Service. Created to protect Western forests from the dangers of irresponsible private sector management, the Forest Service promised an efficient, responsive, and scientific approach. But things didn’t turn out that way. Despite the rhetoric of “multiple use”, political planning prevailed. That process encouraged, and often forced, […]
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