Feb 1, 2016 | Essays, Pinyon-Juniper Forests
Public lands ranching is destroying the Western United States. It has pushed native plant species to the brink of extinction. It causes soil to erode so quickly the land cannot keep up. Livestock are poisoning and depleting water supplies, killing perennial stream...
Jan 5, 2016 | Essays, Pinyon-Juniper Forests
Once I recovered from the shock I experienced witnessing the carnage produced by a Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) so-called “pinyon-juniper treatment project” just south of Spruce Mountain in Nevada, all I wanted was the destruction to stop. In order to stop the...
Dec 12, 2015 | Essays, Pinyon-Juniper Forests
After moving too fast for too long, I seek stillness in warm sun leaning against a wizened, uprooted trunk of a pinyon pine in Cave Valley, Nevada. My thoughts race with yesterday. My friend Max Wilbert and I left Park City, Utah in the pre-dawn bitter cold crossing...
Nov 30, 2015 | Essays, Pinyon-Juniper Forests
Standing in a pinyon-juniper forest on a high slope above Cave Valley not far from Ely, Nevada, I am lost in an ancient vision. It is a vision born under sublime skies stretching above wide, flat valleys bounded by the dramatic mountains of the Great Basin. The vision...
Nov 8, 2015 | Essays, Mauna Kea, Poetry
Recently, I’ve read about the devastating fires in Indonesia. Now, the destruction itself is horrific, but I am also deeply troubled by the relative silence from the media and just about everyone else. I’ve been asking myself why people are not more alarmed by what is...
