Innholdsfortegnelse for July Vol. 57, No. 7 i High Country News

BIOPIRACY, WOMEN’S SAFETY and critical minerals mining were all hot topics at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues this year, but consent received the most attention. Roughly a third of the panel discussions dealt with implementing U.N. standards of Indigenous rights, and some were specifically about the Indigenous right to free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) to decisions impacting tribal people or lands. The U.N. listed its standards in the 2007 Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (UNDRIP) — 46 articles that include the rights to ancestral land and self-determination. Some member nations, like Bolivia, have used this declaration to create national laws. Others, like the United States, have delayed implementing or even recognizing the declaration and the rights it describes. Since the Permanent Forum began meeting…

THIS PAST APRIL, I attended one of the nation’s 1,400 “Hands Off” protests, participating in what was, at the time, the largest demonstration against Donald Trump’s second term. (The recent “No Kings” demonstrations were even larger.) Thousands of people lined the sidewalks along 22nd Street in Tucson, most wearing white and holding handwritten signs, some of them funny and others not. One sign caught my eye for its matter-of-fact clarity: the simple statement “Science is not an alternative fact.” The young woman holding it must be a scientist, I thought, looking into her face. I wondered if she was one of the many employees — more than 10% of the agency’s staff — who were recently fired from the National Institutes of Health. Perhaps she was among the800stafferscutfromtheNational Oceanic and…

CALIFORNIA What is cold-blooded, prone to slithering and fond of eating live mice? And no, we’re not talking about certain members of Congress. Instead, say hello to Angel and Zeke. You’re not seeing double, either: This male California kingsnake was born at Vivarium — a Berkeley pet store — with an “unexpected genetic twist: two heads,” the San Francisco Chronicle reported. The rare reptile(s) were named after Angel Hamilton and Ezekiel White, the Vivarium employees who discovered them. Two heads might be better than one, but not when they’re on the same body: Double-headed snakes — or tortoises or geckos — are extremely uncommon, with the odds against polycephaly about 1 in 100,000 and chances for survival even slimmer. But Angel and Zeke have already lived much longer than expected,…

In memory of Betty Wigington | Denver, CO David Abell | Denver, CO Russ & Larrine Abolt | Finksburg, MD Peter Abrahamsen | Seattle, WA James Reents & Mary Ackerman | Santa Fe, NM Jeffrey Ackermann | Denver, CO LindaAdams & JohnNewman| Kernville, CA Jim Adams | Incline Village, NV David Adelman | Austin, TX Michael Albee | Craig, CO George Albino | Telluride, CO Leon Aliski | Portland, OR Sarah Allan & Christopher Little | Homer, AK Thomas M. Allen | Silverdale, WA John Anderson | San Francisco, CA Keith Anderson | Fort Collins, CO Martine Anderson | Marshfield, MA Shawn Anderson | Salt Lake City, UT Phil Andrus | Chimacum, WA Robert Anzaldua | Colorado Springs, CO Kimberly Apperson | McCall, ID Diana Armstrong | Moscow, ID John…

DURING A DEPRESSIVE EPISODE in the summer of 2021, I attended “Big Gay,” a camping event north of Fresno where Bay Area lesbians congregated for a weekend of swimming and gossip. As I bobbed in an innertube on a marshy lake, I kept one eye on the jaundiced hills, watching for smoke. The Dixie Fire had just ignited in a nearby canyon, ripping through thousands of acres of fir and pine. Earlier that day, fire crews warned that the winds were unpredictable. Back at the car, I had my emergency kit ready: four gallons of water, food for a week, a paper map of the San Joaquin Valley, an extra blanket and two weeks’ worth of antidepressants. In the Anthropocene, the ability to locate emergency exits is essential. The conversation among…

FIRST CAME THE DROUGHT: After three years without significant rain, northern New Mexico’s dense forests of spruce, fir and ponderosa pines were baked to a crisp. Then came the spark — a prescribed burn lit by the U.S. Forest Service in April 2022. It was supposed to reduce wildfire risk but instead got out of control, eventually becoming the largest wildfire in state history. After the prescribed burn escaped its perimeter, it was dubbed the Hermit’s Peak Fire. Then it merged with the Calf Canyon Fire, a “sleeper” fire from January pile burns, in the hills above Las Vegas, New Mexico. (This is rare: Prescribed burns evade control and turn into wildfires only about 1% of the time, according to the Forest Service.) In June, rain finally fell — not…

ON A HILLSIDE above an oak-lined wash, 25 miles south of the U.S.-Mexico border in the state of Sonora, a norteño ballad trumpeted from a portable speaker and Eduardo Ríos Colores sang along, swinging a pickax at the ground. It was early February, and Ríos Colores and a group of Sonoran university students were uprooting catclaw mimosa, a thorny shrub that invades overgrazed grasslands. Once the catclaw was removed, the pasture would eventually become a seed bank for native grasses that provide crucial bird habitat. Ríos Colores — known to most simply as “Colores” — is a rancher in the Madrean Sky Islands, a group of isolated mountain ranges that straddle the international border. Much of Colores’ ranch lies within the watershed of the San Pedro River, which runs north from…

The HCN staff has been out connecting with readers and making new friends around the region as spring melts into summer. Over Memorial Day weekend, we proudly sponsored the annual Mountain Words Festival in Crested Butte, Colorado, at a heavenly 9,000 feet above sea level. The festival was filled with workshops, readings, panel discussions and other programming that highlighted journalism, long-form storytelling, nature writing, climate reporting, nonfiction, fiction, poetry and more. Several HCN editors and writers took part, including contributing editors Leah Sottile and Nick Bowlin, correspondent Jonathan Thompson and former intern and correspondent Ben Goldfarb. Many other writers from HCN’s orbit also enjoyed the three-day celebration. Also in mid-May, Heather Grenier, Montana’s Human Resource Development Council CEO, Bozeman Deputy Mayor Joey Morrison, Bozeman Tenants United Director Benjamin Finegan and…

I AM NOT SURE where I first saw an artichoke. It might have been on a soap opera. My mother and I spent long afternoons watching TV, with the Wyoming wind blowing outside. We immersed ourselves in the 1980s world of shoulder pads, big hair and the glamorous lives in the soaps. I remember a scene of two ladies eating lunch, with crystal on a crisp white tablecloth, and between them was an artichoke. They ripped off leaves and dipped them in butter, all while drinking champagne and talking about high society in New York City. It seemed a world away from the High Plains. I wanted to eat an artichoke. In our house, we ate plenty of food that, for Wyoming, would be deemed exotic. Curry and rice were…

MD, OB-GYN Jackson, Wyoming If women don’t control their own fertility, they’ll never have a level playing field with men. It’ll just never happen. When Roe was overturned, I wasn’t surprised. But I was still shocked; I felt like someone hit me in the chest, even though we knew it was coming. But I’ve had a lot of support from women all over this state. I have not felt lonely or like it’s me up against some huge surge of anger and hatred. It’s not like that at all; it’s just a few people. Abortion is a very normal part of the spectrum of women’s health, and I see no reason to compromise my value system, even though I live in a conservative state. This is a social justice issue…