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High Country News

High Country News

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HCN has covered the lands, wildlife and communities of the Western U.S. for more than 50 years. Get to know the West better by signing up to receive HCN’s on-the-ground reporting and investigations in your inbox.

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Public Lands

People with off-highway vehicles recreate at Anthony Sand Dunes, Idaho.
Posted inArticles

BLM has a plan to tackle booming recreation — at least in theory

by Christine Peterson September 8, 2023January 24, 2024

The agency is taking a hard look at how to protect land and wildlife while welcoming ever more visitors.

Posted inArticles

Public lands had a roller coaster month

by Jonathan Thompson August 31, 2023January 24, 2024

Rounding up the Biden administration’s ups and downs on land policy.

Posted inArticles

See inside the Grand Canyon region’s new monument

by Len Necefer August 11, 2023March 18, 2024

A weeklong journey through the under-documented region, which now has new protections.

A view of Marble Canyon and the Vermillion Cliffs from above the Kaibab Plateau shows the northeastern parcel of the newly designated monument.
Posted inArticles

Tribal nations celebrate new monument near the Grand Canyon

by Brooke Larsen and Alastair Lee Bitsóí August 11, 2023January 24, 2024

How decades of Indigenous advocacy led to the Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni-Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument.

Pumpjacks along the Animas River north of Durango, Colorado.
Posted inArticles

Private equity gets into oil and gas

by Nick Bowlin August 9, 2023January 24, 2024

A new report warns of bankruptcies and abandoned wells on Western public land.

The glow of the Golden Fire burning on Bly Mountain, Oregon. The fire destroyed over 43 homes.
Posted inArticles

People are starting a lot of fires in the Pacific Northwest

by Kylie Mohr August 8, 2023January 24, 2024

The Forest Service reports 197 human-caused or undetermined starts since the beginning of June.

Posted inAugust 1, 2023: In the Line of Fire

An antiquated law rules mining in the West

by Jonathan Thompson August 1, 2023January 26, 2024

Can the U.S. finally vanquish one of the most enduring Lords of Yesterday?

Hikers on Big Sandy Lake Trail in Bridger Teton National Forest, Wyoming.
Posted inArticles

When the woods get noisy, the animals get nervous

by Christine Peterson July 4, 2023January 24, 2024

New study uses trail cameras and speakers to isolate what human sounds do to animals.

Posted inJuly 1, 2023: Waiting for Water

Horse girls: The wild and fearless

by Nina McConigley June 30, 2023January 24, 2024

An author reflects on an encounter in Wyoming’s Red Desert and motherhood.

Posted inArticles

Public Lands Rule rhetoric gets wacky

by Jonathan Thompson June 29, 2023January 24, 2024

Conservatives aren’t so keen on conservation.

Fees for wind energy on public lands, as shown here in the California desert, would be reduced 80% if the rule proposed by the BLM be implemented.
Posted inArticles

BLM aims to grow wind and solar development on public lands

by Akielly Hu June 23, 2023January 24, 2024

A proposed rule decreases the fee for renewable power production that experts say currently bolsters fossil fuel extraction.

A photo of Ted Kaczynski positioned in the window of a member of the Eugene, Oregon activist community. It reads “Be Like Ted.”
Posted inArticles

James Watt, Ted Kaczynski and power over lands

by Leah Sottile June 13, 2023January 24, 2024

The legacies of the two recently departed men are intertwined.

Zach Smith holds the ladder used to surmount fence posts to reach public land adjacent to Elk Mountain Ranch in this exhibit filed in the trespassing lawsuit.
Posted inArticles

Judge rules Wyoming corner crossers did not trespass

by Angus M. Thuermer Jr. May 31, 2023January 24, 2024

The hunters who stepped over the corner of a Carbon County ranch did no damage to private property.

Posted inArticles

Utah’s latest attack on the Antiquities Act

by Jonathan Thompson May 25, 2023January 24, 2024

The bid to diminish national monuments threatens landscape preservation.

Posted inArticles

A ‘seismic shift’ for public lands?

by Jonathan Thompson April 13, 2023January 24, 2024

The new Public Lands Rule would put conservation on par with other uses.

Traffic winds up Little Cottonwood Canyon on a Sunday in March. The notorious “red snake,” — locals’ not-so-affectionate name for the line of vehicle taillights —  extends for miles down Wasatch Boulevard towards Salt Lake City.
Posted inArticles

As Utah’s ski tourism grows, locals’ needs are neglected

by Hannah Singleton March 24, 2023January 24, 2024

The world’s longest gondola is proposed as a traffic solution in Little Cottonwood Canyon, but residents oppose this project.

Alanna Russell, of the Colorado River Tribes, at Ward Valley in February.
Posted inApril 1, 2023: The Path Forward

Tribal nations’ lasting victory in the Mojave Desert

by Anna V. Smith March 22, 2023January 24, 2024

Before Avi Kwa Ame became a national monument, there was the fight for Ward Valley.

Avi Kwa Ame is located on the eastern boundary of the recently announced national monument in Southern Nevada.
Posted inArticles

Avi Kwa Ame is now a national monument

by Anna V. Smith March 21, 2023January 24, 2024

Biden’s proclamation protects parts of the Mojave Desert in southern Nevada and includes tribal co-stewardship.

An aerial view of tundra polygons and caribou tracks in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. The reserve’s almost 23 million acres were set aside in 1923 as an emergency military oil supply.
Posted inArticles

The Biden administration just approved a huge oil project in Alaska

by Victoria Petersen March 14, 2023January 24, 2024

The Willow project threatens local lifeways and wildlife in Nuiqsut, Alaska.

Rain in the Red Desert. “There’s a lot of things out there that Indigenous people knew about,” Soldier Wolf said about the desert.
Posted inArticles

Bringing co-stewardship to Wyoming’s Red Desert

by Taylar Dawn Stagner March 13, 2023January 24, 2024

A Q&A with the Indigenous Land Alliance of Wyoming’s Yufna Soldier Wolf.

Posts pagination

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