In our July feature Correspondent Leah Sottile shows how good plans go awry with her feature on how a locally supported rails-to-trails project in Yamhill County, Oregon, got derailed by politics. In Arizona, landscapes sacred to Indigenous people are sacrificed to mine valuable minerals. In California, a rural community has waited years for safe drinking water, while farther north, the drought-stricken Klamath River’s salmon are dying for lack of water. Meanwhile, lockdown-weary Americans are overusing and often abusing Western parks and public lands. But it’s not all bad news: Stella Kalinina’s photographs reveal industrial sites being turned into public green spaces. We also interview two women who organize farmworkers, and review “Fireline,” a podcast that takes a fresh take at wildfire, and a book, Lisa Wells’ “Believers,” about people determined to live good lives despite the reality of the climate crisis.
This month, we look at how Westerners cope with wildfires: In Idaho, small towns clash with the Forest Service over how to manage the forest, while in Oregon, people left homeless by fires find refuge in a Medford hotel. Alaska Natives respond to food insecurity by building biomass-fueled greenhouses, and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes announce a plan concerning the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous people. Water remains a perennial problem: Phoenix, Arizona, is outgrowing its supply, while California’s new groundwater sustainability act is getting off to a troubled start. Asian Americans flock to gun shops after recent attacks, Montana activists continue to fight for racial justice, and cannabis growers use more energy than you’d expect. Finally, we talk to Michelle Nijhuis about her new book and review two other intriguing volumes “Red Nation Rising” and “Finding the Mother Tree.”