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What happens to our parks when rangers  disappear?  

By Alex Johnson

For over a month, the longest government shutdown in American history has left our national parks in free fall. When…

Tourists at North Window Arch, Arches National Park, Nov. 25, 2024.

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Sandstone towers challenge this rescue team

By Molly Marcelo

I was high up on a cliff above Moab, Utah, as night was falling, and I couldn’t find my way…

Grand County Search and Rescue members rigging a technical rope rescue on the top of Castleton Tower near Moab. Photo courtesy Grand County Search and Rescue

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Storms trigger a humanitarian disaster in western Alaska

By Tim Lydon

Powerful back-to-back storms have ravaged dozens of mostly Alaska Native communities in western Alaska: Approximately 2,000 people were displaced, and…

survivors of ex-Typhoon Halong file onto C-17 military transport plan in Bethel for transport to Anchorage

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Jane Goodall told us never give up

By Stephen Trimble

In her “Last Words” interview that was broadcast after her death, Jane Goodall talked about her calm in the face…

The Lee-Curtis proposal would bring OHV traffic into the wildness and quiet of Cathedral Valley in Capitol Reef National Park. Photo courtesy Stephen Trimble

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Can we learn to co-exist with grizzlies?

By Molly Absolon

This summer, a grizzly cub in Grand Teton National Park gained international fame after an adult male bear killed the…

A grizzly bares its teeth in Yellowstone. Photo Courtesy Taylor Wright via Unsplash

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Artificial intelligence wants to inhale my Montana book

By Writers on the Range

Recently, my publisher told me that a major technology company involved in the development of artificial intelligence (AI) wants to…

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Let’s get to restoration and halt the roadless rodeo

By Ben Long

Grounded in common sense, the Roadless Rule that the Trump administration wants to eliminate has not been controversial for 24…

Hermosa Creek Roadless Area from the Colorado Trail, Photo Courtesy Bertrand Poitier

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By now, it’s a bizarre tradition of the West

By Dennis Hinkamp

Going into my 26th Burning Man, I admit I was crestfallen at the news that “Midnight Poutine” was not returning. The…

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Rare wolf faces hard road to recovery

By Ted Williams

Most people are familiar with the gray wolf, which was reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park in 1995, and has since…

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Some hikers leave plenty of traces

By Marjorie “Slim” Woodruff

Part of my job as a Grand Canyon educator is picking up stuff a hiker drops or leaves behind next…

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The push is on to strip big trees from our national forests

By Mitch Friedman

It didn’t get much notice, but President Trump has turbocharged logging on public lands in ways that are likely to…

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The wolf-killing case that could change Wyoming

By Wendy Keefover

The Wyoming man who deliberately ran down a wolf with his snowmobile in 2024 didn’t face any consequences, unless you…

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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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