Category Archives: Environment

Starry night enthusiast and his camera

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The Colorado Plateau has some of the most light pollution free dark skies in the continental U.S.  On a dark Plateau night, the Milky Way casts a shadow.  Dark nights may not feel intuitively like a resource worth protecting, but on this blog by Jaymi Heimbuch of treehugger.com, youthful photographer Ben Canales captures some of the grandeur and wonder of a dark, starry night with his camera.  In a (somewhat long winded) attached video he even will show you how.  . . . more>>

Only one stream in Utah is wild and scenic?

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Above all Utah is a wild and scenic place.  Yet only one segment of one river in the state has been granted protection.  There may be hope. Segments of nine rivers and streams in southwest Utah have been deemed eligible by the Bureau of Land Management for possible protection under the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.  Zach Frankel, executive director of the Utah Rivers Council, said getting rivers or sections of streams designated as wild and scenic is difficult because of the required congressional approval. Frankel said his group has been identifying rivers for designation throughout Utah, but a congressional sponsor is needed and no one has shown much passion.  Why the lack of concern?  . . . more>>

Ranchers wearing Tevas!

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Earlier I made a post referring to an article about grazing and land management in the Los Angeles Times.    Now here is one from The Atlantic, featuring 21st century ranchers, one even wearing Tevas.  Tevas on a Suburu driving rancher is not something you see every day.  The Atlantic has picked up on the critical idea that managing range land to optimize grass growth can make a significant impact on global carbon sequestration.  It’s good to see that deceptively benign appearing grazing practices are being seen in the national press as a globally important issue.  But, once again, it is the local “way of life” that stands in the way.  Can Wall Street actually help? . . . more>>

What if your “way of life” is destructive?

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The main argument for grazing cows on public land in the West is that it is and has been a “way of life.”  Even the ranchers admit it is not economic.  The rugged cowboy is a favorite modern day icon for the West and we all often feel a fondness for the idea he is still out there.  Until you see a creek or meadow after the cows have been through.  Here’s an article in the Los Angeles Times where allotments are being rested from cows, and allowed to recover.  Will the National Forest Service make the right decision to keep the cows our, save a landscape and a rare trout species, or will “way of life” prevail?  . . . more>>

Soren Jespersen answers the extractors about jobs

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Kirsten and I had dinner with Soren and his wife Kristen while we were in Steamboat Springs last week.  Soren is the son of my old Wasatch Advisors partner, Roy Jespersen, and it was good to catch up with Soren and find out what he was working on for The Wilderness Society.  I was disappointed to learn that public land grazing is considered a third rail by The Wilderness Society, but encouraged about the work they were doing, along with ranchers, on protecting land that ought not to be drilled and mined.  Soren published this about Salazar’s visit to the West recently.  . . . more>>

Colorado is watching the water in streams with real money

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Over 60 percent of the Colorado River’s native flows are permanently removed at its headwaters by urban water systems, according to Colorado Trout Unlimited, and now two proposed water projects for Denver and the Front Range​ could take another 20 percent if enacted. The threatened Fraser River​ is a main tributary of the Colorado. It starts at Berthoud Pass, flowing for 32.5 miles — 19.5 miles in protected U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management lands — past Winter Park to Granby, Colorado.   In 1992 Colorado voters overwhelmingly approved Great Outdoors Colorado (GOCO) to receive up to 50 percent of Colorado Lottery proceeds and use the funds on projects that protect and enhance Colorado’s parks, wildlife, trails, rivers and open space, and more than 5 million people by last year.  We can watch how that money is used to speak for the value of water in streams.  . . . more>>

A second century of stewardship and engagement

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What a great title for legislation from a venerable name in U.S. conservation support. Yesterday Kirsten and I drove through the San Juan Mountains from Durango to Ouray, during the peak of fall colors, and we think it may be about the most beautiful landscape we have ever seen. So it is gratifying to see that there is right now a proposal to designate more than 60,000 acres in southwestern Colorado as either wilderness or a special management area back before Congress.   U.S. Sens. Mark Udall and Michael Bennet are reintroducing the San Juan Mountains Wilderness Act, Continue reading →

Preaching conservation without a choir

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Western politicians and special interest local factions have always been against the idea of protecting and conserving tracts of public land.  It’s no different today.  Kirsten and I were just in Moab this week — it’s now late in September– and the town is still packed with tourists.   We had breakfast with a couple from upstate New York who were blown away by the vast beauty of the open West.  Folks from around the U.S. and the world flock in for a taste of America’s wild heritage, to the point that we risk loving the land to death.  Yet our local politicians speak as if conservation is a D.C. based political conspiracy that hurts the West.  Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is in Utah promoting conservation this week.  Is it representative that he gets the cold shoulder?  . . . more>>

World’s first International Dark Sky Park is in Utah

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 International Dark Sky Park

In 2006 the International Dark-skies Association designated a small park in Utah, Natural Bridges National Monument, as the world’s first International Dark-sky Park, thereby setting the bar incredibly high for those parks that wanted to follow suit.  The skies above Natural Bridges are amongst the darkest in the USA.  Once a source of wonder–and one half of the entire planet’s natural  environment—the star-filled nights of just a few years ago are vanishing in a yellow haze. Human-produced light pollution not only mars our view of the stars; poor lighting threatens astronomy, disrupts ecosystems, affects human circadian rhythms, and wastes energy to the tune of $2.2 billion per year in the U.S. alone.  Protecting the dark skies of Utah is one of my passions, we recently created a Colorado Plateau Chapter of the International Dark Sky Association which is holding it’s second annual Heritage Dark Sky Festival in Torrey this coming weekend.

Read more about Steve Owens, a Brit who has received a traveling fellowship to visit and report on all the dark sky parks starting with Natural Bridges.  Why waste a dark sky?  . . . more>>

Protecting the environment is good for the economy

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The Utah Foundation recently released its first biennial Quality of Life Index, based on a rigorously designed survey of what a representative cross-section of Utahns consider most important to their well-being. Environmental quality was near the top of the list.   Robert Adler of the University of Utah in a Salt Lake Tribune op-ed wrote last week that, “The foundation’s findings also question the myth that environmental quality and jobs are antithetical values. In fact, the survey shows that Utahns value both a sound economy and a healthy environment as fundamental, co-equal requirements of their quality of life.”representative cross-section of Utahns consider most important to their well-being. Environmental quality was near the top of the list.  Why in Utah, then, is the depiction “Environmentalist”  a pejorative? . . . more>>