climate change · Water

When snow runoff is low, so are our spirits

By Auden Schendler

At this time of year in Western Colorado, my friends and I watch rivers. We’re eagerly anticipating a bruising spring…

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Fire

The West heads for wildfires unprepared

By David Calkin

The West is staring down a dangerous wildfire year. A dry winter and historically low snowpack have set the stage…

Calwood Fire outside Boulder Colorado, courtesy Malachi Brooks on Unsplash

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Uncategorized

Planting one million trees to cool a desert city

By Karen Mockler

Tucson lies in the heart of the Sonoran Desert where summers are serious business. In 2024, a record-breaking 112 days…

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Fire · Public Lands

Dismantling the U.S. Forest Service harms public lands and communities

By Tracy Stone-Manning

When I led the Bureau of Land Management under President Biden, the hardest part of my job was reassembling the…

San Isabel National Forest, Nathrop, Colorado, Dave Marston photo

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Photography | See More
Katie Law hands out a diploma, Katie Klingsporn image
Canyon of the Ancients, BLM land, near Cortez Colorado, Dave Marston photo
Photo by Denys Nevozhai on Unsplash
Federal firefighters digging a fire line, photo courtesy National Interagency Fire Center

Focusing on natural resources and public lands in the West

Writers on the Range provides articles about the economic, cultural and legislative change taking place in the west with focus on natural resources and public lands. Broadly our topics are public lands, outdoor recreation, water and economic institutions serving the west.

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Help us support journalists and newspapers across the West. Writers on the Range provides editorial to Western newspapers in the intermountain west. Our topics include public lands, outdoor recreation, water and economic institutions serving the west. Our writers are westerners from 10 states with diverse opinions and insight. As a 501c3 corporation as defined and approved by the IRS, donations to Writers on the Range are tax deductible.

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We are looking for diverse writers, writers of color, women and young people. The West needs diverse voices. Topics should be broad enough for Western Readers across our intermountain territory of Montana, Idaho, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, and Wyoming. Our readers also care about the Great Plains and the eastern parts of California, Oregon, and Washington.

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Larmer was the first editor of Writers on the Range after it landed at HCN in 1998, he went on to become publisher/editor of High Country News (HCN) 2003-2020, and is currently senior development director HCN. Larmer is also on the advisory board of Writers on the Range.

Writers on the Range grew out of the West’s public lands, growth, and culture wars of the 1990s. At the time, environmentalists were at loggerheads with the timber, mining, oil and gas and ranching industries that had dominated and shaped land-use and rural communities for decades. 

Meanwhile, a flood of newcomers poured into the region’s urban areas and smaller towns, stressing their social and economic fabrics beyond recognition. How could the West sort through these contentious issues in a civil manner?

The answer was to give voice to a wide range of people from the region itself.  Writers with different backgrounds, espousing new ideas, were put front and center on the region’s opinion pages.

After a brief run as a think tank, Writers on the Range landed on the front porch of High Country News in 1997.  High Country News is the well-known, highly awarded publication that covers the west’s diverse natural and human communities.  It was a perfect match.

Soon dozens of news outlets subscribed.  Over the next 20 years, Writers on the Range published fresh columns from writers and thinkers across the ideological spectrum, provoking thought, generating debate, and defining the possibilities of a better west.

 It was truly a grassroots opinion service and, now as an independent non-profit organization, is still so today.

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