The wind whips through the passes of the Rocky Mountains, blowing endlessly across the Blackfeet reservation in northern Montana. The land rises from the austere prairie to the towering mountain range, today comprising much of Glacier National Park, which is within the treaty area of the Blackfoot Confederacy. Borders, land ownership, neighbors and government policies […]
A ragtag fleet of bicycles is solving some environmental problems for the small city of Roseburg, Oregon. Handy racks of these colorful bikes dot the public landscape, and their use is free to everyone. People borrow the bikes and when they’re through, they return them to the closest bike stand. The "ugly" bikes provide a […]
Everyone at Lake Tahoe is hoping that history—or at least a very specific historical fact—will repeat itself. Tahoe—a 23-mile-long, 12-mile wide, nearly 1,600-foot-deep lake nestled in the Sierra Nevada—regained its lost clarity after most of the surrounding forests were clear cut in the 1800s and erosion was rampant. That’s particularly good news now, considering that […]
Putting Grounds in the Ground? Starbucks sells more than 10 million cups of coffee worldwide every week, according to spokeswoman Helen Chung. That much coffee leaves an awful lot of grounds to dispose of, and so it was heartening to learn that the manager of a Starbucks in Freehold, New Jersey was, at least for […]
In the case of coffee production, the old ways are the best ways. Traditionally, coffee is grown in the shade of tropical overstory trees, which enrich the soil and reduce the need for chemical fertilizers. The practice preserves forest habitat for migratory songbirds, and is friendly to organic production. But by 1990, more than half […]
“Most people don't realize that there are caribou in the lower 48 states,” says wildlife biologist Tim Layser, “and that they are the most endangered population of large mammals in the country. Once spread throughout the West, they all disappeared within a single lifetime.” In an attempt to save the species, a cooperative effort between […]
Damning the Dams North America's native freshwater species—the fish, mussels, crayfish, frogs, snails and other animals that live in rivers and streams—are going extinct as fast as species that live in tropical rainforests. And dams are mostly to blame. That's the message of a recent report, America's Most Endangered Rivers of 2000, released by the […]
When Wild Sentry, the Northern Rockies Ambassador Wolf Program, traveled to Silver City, New Mexico last year, more than 450 people attended for what was expected to be a shouting, gun-slinging, heated debate. Instead, people listened, and many changed their minds about wolves.
The unadorned and determinedly plain setting of the Stillwater Friends Meeting House in Barnesville, Ohio proved to be an ideal setting for the Second Luddite Congress, a gathering for people to whom the computer–and the rest of technological society–is anathema. Though little sympathy was expressed for the Unabomber, who’s singlehandedly given technophobes a bad name, there was some support for his basic message of rejecting industrial "progress" and embracing "wild nature."
When residents of San Juan County, Washington gathered to sign a petition to ban personal watercrafts (PWCs) in the waters surrounding the San Juan islands, they did so with the utmost confidence. Indeed, the county’s small towns, located near the Canadian border, overwhelmingly supported an ordinance to ban PWCs (marketed by Kawasaki as Jet Skis) and preserve the habitats of oceanic wildlife, like the orca whale.
