Alberta adds 13 'special places' to protected list: Not enough for wildlife, critics say. By Geoffrey Vanderburg, The Edmonton Journal. Note for Americans: a hectare is a metric unit of measurement equaling 2.471 acres.

Delay of snowmobile ban stirs disagreement. Associated Press. Wyoming Senator Thomas says it does stop the Yellowstone Park ban. The Park Service says "not."

Babbitt to recommend two national monuments in Montana. By Bob Anez. Associated Press. Congressman Hill's protest that this will block access to petroleum reserves is a line of argument we are going hear more and more of as politicians try to shift the blame for high OPEC oil prices and the chaos in electricity due to its deregulation. This round was fought in the energy crisis of the 1970s. The arguments and their answers are very old, but there are a lot of folks, including media, who haven't heard them before.

Bitterroot Forest releases fire report. By Carlotta Grandstaff. Missoula Independent. "Interestingly, the most severe burns occurred on private and state land, contradicting Gov. Marc Racicot’s claims that the Clinton Administration and the Forest Service mismanaged federal lands and in turn caused the disastrous fire season."

Racicot Declines Bush Offer to be Attorney General. Missoulian. Was it really just that he wanted to live in Montana with his family? 12-23. As we now know Senator John Ashcroft has been nominated Attorney General.  Many political commentators are saying Racicot was not conservative enough for the job because as  Montana governor he had vetoed a "Right to Work Bill" (this is a type of anti-labor union measure, in the pantheon of right wing ideas ever since the 1940s).

Whitman Seen as Strong Choice to Lead E.P.A. New York Times. By DAVID M. HALBFINGER with ANDREW C. REVKIN

Easing of Montana Environmental Laws Feared. Erin P. Billings. by Erin P. Billings. Billings Gazette.

BLM's motorized plan is stuck in reverse by John Adams. Writers on the Range. Has "The Bureau of Livestock and Mining has morphed into the Bureau of unLimited Motorization."

People for the USA Disbands. by Heidi Walters. High Country News. What a crying shame! Such a nice bunch of rural reactionaries. But we could have expected it after they changed their name from People for the West to one so bland.

Making the roads safe - for elk, bears, and wolves. By Todd Wilkinson. Christian Science Monitor.

Congressional rider will not stop YNP Snowmobile Ban! Billings Gazette.

Forest Service approves controversial Wyoming land swap to ski resort. By Jennifer Langston, Post Register.

Lands group submits proposal: Idaho would manage projects on federal land. Spokesman Review. By use of "trusts" Idaho is proposing to take over management of 11-million acres of national forest land under a proposal that has seen little publicity from conservation groups. Details?

What do Voters Love? The Land. ENN. Love of the land and wildlife spreads across all political views with land trusts being a device that stirs less political controversy.

Oil industry gets set to lobby for more drilling on U.S. lands. By The Associated Press. “I think the oil and gas industry is going to have its way with the federal government,” said David Alberswerth of The Wilderness Society. 
I would expect the borders of the Yellowstone Country and the Rocky Mountain Front in Montana to suffer the most under an oil-company dominated executive branch.

Montana Businesses target environmental law. By Charles S. Johnson. Billings Gazette State Bureau. Wow, what a blast from the past! They want to return to the policies that have kept Montana poor, backward, and with a population under a million people.
This is not your grandpa's economy. The Missoulian opins that pumping up the natural resource segments of Montana's economy at the expense of the environment is not a policy that will cure Montana's economic ills.

Judge tells BLM to reconsider grazing rules by Succor Creek: Environmentalists contend bureau fails to protect Owyhee County area. Idaho Statesman. The Owyhee Country is the largest place in the West without a paved road. A number of Idaho groups are promoting it for Clinton's last national monument designation, but others contend the danger to the Owyhee is decades of overgrazing, something monument status would not check and might even enshrine. This article is about the continuing actions of those enviros who seek to reduce the grazing.

• Montana Wilderness Association Blasts Draft Off-road Policy. Billings Gazette by Clair Johnson.
  
• 12-11 BLM Authorizes new plan to regulate vehicles on BLM public lands throughout the West. Associated Press. While this may sound like something, I have yet to hear from a conservationist who thinks the proposed plan is worth the paper it is printed on.  Their proposal is open to public comment until Jan 3., 2001. Here is the link to the BLM web site: National OHV Management Strategy

• Snowmobile manufacturers, Blue Ribbon Coalition file Suit Against Park Snowmobile Phase out. Associated Press.
  
• 12-9-2000. Clean and Green Snowcoaches for the Winter Olympics may point the way for post-snowmobile Yellowstone by Jeff Tollefson. Billings Gazette.

Audubon Society leases The Beartooth Ranch, seized from convicted drug dealer. Billings Gazette

Snowmobilers Look to Bush. Billings Gazette. By Jeff Toffefson.

11-28-00 Tree that was protester's home for two years cut by chainsaw. CNN.
11-30-00 Julia "Butterfly" Hill Revisits the Tree she saved only to have someone try and fell it. San Francisco Chronicle.

Great Sands Dunes National Monument in  Colorado to become National Park. Denver Post.

Yellowstone and Grand Teton Solidify Their upcoming Snowmoble Ban. Billings Gazette.

Government says environmental lawsuits stymie endangered list. CNN

• US Fish and Wildlife Service Bars further additions to the Endangered Species List: Cites Budget Woes. Associated Press. 
• Defenders of Wildlife Condemns Fish and Wildlife Service. "Phony Budget Shortfall." News release.
• Endangered Species Coalition Blasts Administration. News Release.

Central Idaho Moose Restoration A Success. Hunting moose in Wood River Valley Suggested. Idaho Mountain Express.

11-10. Southern Utah and Nevada "cowboys" seize national monument cattle  impounded by the BLM. By Brent Israelsen. Salt Lake Tribune. Were it not for the presidential controversy, this would be a major national story. 

11-13-00 Outlaw ranchers refuse to return cattle, despite federal prison threat. Arizona Republic. Free registration required to read.
11-15-00. Cattle Wrangle May Bring Sanctions.  By Brent Israelsen. Salt Lake Tribune.
11-17-00. Escalante Wilderness Asks Government to Stand up to Rancher Intimidation. News Release. It looks like the government may be backing down after the ranchers stole their cattle.
11-19-00. Cattle Imbroglio Fanning the Fire In Battle Between Ranchers. By Brent Israelson. Salt Lake Tribune. The irony of this situation is that the heritage these renegade livestock operators hope to preserve was created not by their community but by the Hollywood movies filmed in the area 30 years ago.

Babbit's Plan to Protect the Red Desert In Wyoming Criticized. Associated Press. Most folks have never heard of Wyoming's Great Divide Basin, but Dick Cheney knows this country. As congressman in Wyoming he would not abide this silly talk about antelope, sage grouse, mountain plovers, and desert scenery. He won't as VP either.

Microbial Transport At Yellowstone: By Land, Sea Or Air? Science Daily.

British Columbia Government Adds 20,000 Square Kilometres (5 Million Acres) to Spectacular Muskwa-Kechika Conservation Area From Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS). This is the country the Idaho and Yellowstone wolves came from in the second (1996) release of wolves.

Here is another story on the enlargement of Craters of the Moon National Monument, the first with a map. Craters expansion finalized Monument grows by 600,000 acres. By GREG STAHL Idaho Mountain Express.

Wolf Activists Want Wolf Reintroduction to Southern Rockies. Rocky Mountain News.

The big story today is the release of the preferred alternative in the President's plan to protect Forest Service roadless areas. See my Idaho Wildcountry Page.

Defenders wants to lease private pasture in Paradise Valley for ranchers who have federal grazing allotments in nearby wolf range. Associated Press. 

Proposal for placer mining in Yellowstone River just north of YNP draws criticism. Bozeman Daily Chronicle. By Scott McMillion.

Clinton creates new monument in Arizona, greatly expands one in Idaho. By Matt Kelly Associated Press Writer. The Idaho monument is a huge 660,000 acres. This is great news and it indicates the President truly believes in protecting the environment and will not retaliate for Nader screwing up the election. The next question is will the President declare the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge a National Monument to keep it away from the intent of a Bush administration to drill for oil?               Photo of area. Updated 11-12-2000

Reflections on the 2000 election by Ralph Maughan

Election 2000: gray day or heyday for greens?  By Margot Higgins. ENN News

GOPost-Mortem. Now that Republicans have swept the [Montana] election, what’s next? By George Ochenski of the Missoula Independent. 

President's National Monuments spur Western congressionals into some protective legislative measures. Steen's Mountain in eastern Oregon the most significant. High Country News. By Michelle Nijhuis and Oakley Brooks

Science Magazine. Dam removal: Too little, too late for salmon? ENN News. Keeping these old pork barrel dams has become a major GOP theme in the Washington US Senate race with Republican Slade Gorton defending them and challenger Maria Cantwell hedging. Is it already too late?

Salmon debate stirs as Election Day nears. ENN News. The debate also figures in the Washington State governor's race. 

Chronic wasting disease: FWP will again test deer, elk. Agency wants heads from hunters' kills. DARYL GADBOW of the Missoulian.