Custom Geospatial Solutions News Today

This issue takes us into the Mojave Desert, reminding us that landscapes too often dismissed as wastelands have always been home to Indigenous cultures and complex ecosystems. Our feature profiles artist Kim Stringfellow, who has devoted years to interrogating the desert’s history. We visit other unique landscapes, from the Great Basin’s vanishing sagebrush sea to Montana’s alpine peaks, where a strange pink algae is hastening the already rapid snowmelt. We ask uncomfortable questions: Aft...

In this special issue, we take an in-depth look at the future of conservation in the West. Experts agree it’s time to upgrade the environmental laws of the 1970s. Chuck Sams, the National Park Service’s first Native director, hopes to lead the agency in a more inclusive direction. Collaboration keeps political extremism at bay in Oregon, seeks to protect eagles from lead poisoning and works to preserve wildlife corridors on both sides of the Borderlands. In Oregon’s Willamette Valley, a sm...

An unexpected theme runs through our feature stories — the idea of “Making Refuge” in the West — as we consider how humans and other species can work together to enhance our mutual survival. June T Sanders’ photos and Abigail Hansel’s essay celebrate a community on the Washington-Idaho border that thrives despite anti-trans paranoia and extremism, while B. Toastie teaches us about the age-old relationship between lamprey and tribal communities in the Pacific Northwest. Alliances ofte...

In our final issue of 2021, we dive into controversies, from the fight over putting a wind farm next to a Japanese American incarceration camp, to a report on how income inequality is transforming the West. Lack of housing makes life difficult for Jackson Hole-area workers, while an Indigenous activist questions how much Biden’s Bears Ears proclamation accomplished. Our features tackle two subjects that often divide HCN’s own readers: Wild horses and cattle ranching. On the Wind River Reserv...