policy

Fracking, Congress Endanger America’s Rivers

by brendan leonard on May 15, 2012 · 1 comment

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American Rivers today announced its annual list of Most Endangered Rivers, topped by America’s River, the Potomac, neighboring the U.S. legislature that’s rolling back measures to protect U.S. waterways. The organization, who last year celebrated the high-profile removal of dams on Washington State’s Elwha River and White Salmon River, releases a list of its top [...]

BLM Struggles With New Obama Planning Process

by kimberly hirai high country news on May 9, 2012 · 0 comments

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After the December 2008 energy lease auction made famous by its disruption by activist Tim DeChristopher, the Obama administration retooled the planning process for balancing development with preservation. As Kimberly Hirai reports, the result has been anything but simple or easy. And as we say with stories like this, it’s wonky but worth reading. About [...]

Park Ranger Pays the Price for Whistleblowing

by andrea lankford high country news on May 7, 2012 · 9 comments

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Rob Danno blew the whistle on illegal tree cutting. Now he’s paying.

Ruling Against Pack Animals in Wilderness Hurts Outfitters

by michael frank on April 13, 2012 · 6 comments

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Back in January a U.S. District Court Judge in San Francisco said that the National Park Service’s plan for allowing horses into Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks violated the 1964 Wilderness Act. The ruling by judge Richard Seeborg came in a three-year-old lawsuit brought by the High Sierra Hikers Association, which held that the [...]

Saguaro National Park Bans Sale of Bottled Water and Soda

by kurt repanshek national parks traveler on March 28, 2012 · 0 comments

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If you’re planning to visit Saguaro National Park in southern Arizona, bring a reusable water bottle, as the park has banned the sale of disposable bottles of water and soda. The ban took effect last week. Similar bans have been put in effect at Grand Canyon National Park, Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, and Zion National [...]

A Solution to Grazing Where Seemingly Everyone Wins

by jodi peterson high country news on March 13, 2012 · 0 comments

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If you’ve been trolling the news recently, you might think that ranchers still reign supreme over the federal estate, despite the fact that the number of cattle and sheep on public lands has declined by more than half since the 1950s. In November, for example, the watchdog group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility filed a [...]

Opinion: It’s Time to Stop Feeding Those Jackson Elk

by bruce smith high country news on March 2, 2012 · 1 comment

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In western Wyoming, feeding elk seems as normal as long winters, Grand Teton views, and oil and gas wells. But of the one million elk that now roam North America, only three percent are fed by government employees, and three-fourths of those animals are fed in Wyoming at the National Elk Refuge in Jackson Hole [...]

Park Service Restricts Cape Hatteras Beach Driving, Motorists Sue

The battle over motorized use of public lands extends far beyond the mountains and forests of Colorado and the deserts of the Southwest. On the East Coast, motorized users recently went to court to try and overturn a new set of rules governing motorized use at Cape Hatteras National Seashore — despite the fact that the Cape Hatteras [...]

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Crater Lake National Park Given Power to Ban Sightseeing Flights

Sightseeing flights over national parks long have been contentious. Officials at Grand Canyon National Park have grappled with buzzing helicopters and droning planes, they’ve been an issue at Denali National Park and Preserve, Mount Rainier National Park, and many other park units. One of the big issues is who should have the final say on [...]

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Controversial Forest Service Fees Struck Down

You known those obnoxious Forest Service fee programs, like the Adventure Pass? The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that if you want to park at an undesignated trailhead, hike to an unimproved chunk of trail and set up your tent, or just pull over and eat a sandwich, the U.S. Forest Service can’t [...]

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Endangered Species to New Federal Budget: Thanks for Nothing

These are tough times for the federal budget, with all sorts of competing demands for scarce funds, but endangered species will suffer disproportionately under President Barack Obama’s proposed budget. Hundreds are wait-listed for consideration of protection under the Endangered Special Acts, some 250 for an average of 20 years, but Obama has proposed a $1.5 [...]

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Q&A: Why Bike Races in National Parks Are a Bad Idea

In 1976, fresh from the University of Maryland with degrees in French and Spanish, Joan Anzelmo began her National Park Service career greeting international tourists at the agency’s new Visitor Center in Washington, D.C. But it wasn’t long before the former “city girl” came out West, where she spent most of her 35-year tenure, including [...]

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At Long Last, Grand Canyon Bans Bottled Water

It was ugly. It was public. And it involved controversy over whose park it is anyway, Coca-Cola’s or ours, but in a plan just approved by John Wessels, National Park Service Intermountain Regional director, Grand Canyon National Park will end the sale of water sold in disposable bottles within 30 days. The park has free [...]

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Northern Hemisphere’s Largest Wilderness Facing Mining Boom

Canada’s Nunavut Territory is the largest undisturbed wilderness in the Northern Hemisphere. It also contains large deposits of uranium, generating intense interest from mining companies and raising concerns that a mining boom could harm the caribou at the center of Inuit life. Until her semi-nomadic family moved into the tiny Inuit community of Baker Lake [...]

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House GOP Bill Could Devastate National Parks

In the past few months, we’ve reported several time on a bill making its way through the U.S. Congress that would give the Department of Homeland Security and Border Patrol unprecedented power in federal lands within 100 miles of the U.S. border, circumventing environmental and many other laws in favor of a shadowy effort against [...]

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