Ancestral footprints

Wii'l Gdwiisa, or "Clenched Fist Mountain," stretches more than 1,000 feet over the high plateau about 12 miles south of the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. It is known to the Havasupai as the abdomen of Mother Earth. Red Butte, and nearby Mat Taav Tiivjunmdva, a meadow about 3 miles north of Red Butte close to the Canyon's South Rim, is her navel.

The new national monument that President Biden is designating in Arizona today comes after Native nations advocated for decades to protect the area

The monument isn’t expected to block Energy Fuels Inc. from mining for uranium at its existing Pinyon Plain Mine, which will be within the monument about 13 miles south of the Grand Canyon.

At a time when the Biden administration is pursuing a carbon-free economy and pouring millions upon millions of dollars into the development of next generation nuclear technology, the Tuesday designation of a new national monument in Arizona is confounding to Utah Gov. Spencer J. Cox.

Fort Lewis College’s All Our Kin Collective is meant to help students find a deeper sense of belonging within their communities.

Lorelei Cloud joined the Colorado Water Conservation Board in March as the first tribal council member to serve in the position. She spoke to Colorado Matters about including Indigenous voices in water discussions and the challenges ahead for the Colorado River.

An Oregon State professor and U.S. Geological Survey biologist reviewed 50 years of data on fish survival and hatchery costs.

Two tribes in Washington are asking federal regulators to ban a chemical widely used in car tires that scientists have identified as highly toxic to salmon and other fish.

Visitation to Wyoming’s Curt Gowdy State Park mushroomed by more than 900% since crews started building a trail system there in 2006. As it strives to balance benefits with impacts, what can the state learn from Gowdy?

A conflict in the state’s richest valley pitted out-of-state landowners against local hunters and anglers over a few crucial feet of land.

The project includes working with partners and tribes to plant blister rust resistant seed and seedlings, identify rust resistant trees, monitor seedling survival, and identify climate refugia, the Department of Interior announced. The project builds on 20 years of work at Glacier National Park and within the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.

The team of scientists, which included federal U.S. Forest Service researchers, conducted what is essentially an audit of the nursery system, ticking off a number of shortcomings that could hobble tree planting initiatives.

An analysis provided to E&E News from Accountable.US cross-referenced leasing data from the Bureau of Land Management with oil majors’ Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

The Office of Inspector General found the agency is failing to fully track and monitor wells that risk becoming abandoned.

A federal judge has ordered the U.S. Forest Service to consult again with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on the road closure effectiveness in the Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest, saying it may have affected grizzly bears.

The U.S. Forest Service approved a plan last week to remove invasive rainbow trout from the Buffalo Creek drainage near Yellowstone National Park as agencies struggle to stop the fish from hybridizing with Yellowstone cutthroat trout.

With grizzly bears getting captured in the Sapphire Mountains and photographed on the fringe of the Missoula Valley, state wildlife officials are expanding their outreach efforts to avoid conflicts this summer.

Activists say that a program intended to protect a declining caribou herd in Southwestern Alaska was approved without a public comment period or proper environmental review, at the expense of 99 black and brown bears in southwestern Alaska.

Wolverines — also called “mountain devils” and “skunk bears” — could be the next large mammal reintroduced in Colorado after wildlife officials implement the voter-mandated reintroduction of wolves by the end of the year.

Two Montana conservation groups have told federal authorities that they plan to sue within 60 days if the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service doesn’t reconsider its agreement with the state regarding exporting wolf pelts.

Citing concerns over migration, the Wyoming Office of State Lands and Investments delayed finalizing a lease sale that could allow development to occur in a Path of the Pronghorn bottleneck area for the price of $19 an acre.

Gas drilling can go ahead in the Wyoming land where sage-grouse live and migrating pronghorns pass through, a Tenth Circuit panel ruled.

Gunshots outnumber electrocution as a cause of death, according to a new study.

The Inflation Reduction Act is providing $44 million for park service work in 39 states. The project list includes $481,000 to control invasive bullfrogs and restore native amphibians in parks in New Mexico and Arizona and $300,000 to advance bison reintroduction efforts at Glacier National Park in Montana.

The promising start to the Snake River sockeye run appears to have melted away as the adult fish progressed upstream.

If any uncertainly lingered about whether people care deeply about the Big Hole River and its sister streams, all doubt evaporated last Wednesday afternoon.

Pitkin County Healthy Rivers is hoping to teach landowners how to coexist peacefully with beavers, correct beaver misconceptions and maybe even reintroduce them onto carefully chosen areas of the watershed.

Dramatic insect declines previously reported around the world are also occurring in Colorado. Researchers with the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, or RMBL, report that flying insects in the mountains outside of Crested Butte have declined more than 60% since 1986.

A 20-mile hike in the Tetons rewarded bumble bee researcher Ellen Keaveny with a special Bombus occidentalis sighting.

The Nocturnal Pollinator BioBlitz, a collaboration between Montana Moth Project and Glacier National Park Citizen Science Program, allows participants to capture and identify nocturnal insects with the help of experts.

The state's largest gas utility says electrification is just one part of decarbonization. Environmentalists want it to be more.

Micron, Meta invest in renewable energy facilities in Idaho to offset energy demand.

The nuclear facility project that is planned for the Kemmerer area has a key issue: it lacks a fuel source. But officials say they now have an answer to that problem.

The number of counties with ordinances on wind turbines quadrupled from 2018 to 2022, a new federal study found.

The renewable energy industry says it was blindsided by the Alberta government’s moratorium on new wind and solar projects, and some executives warned the move could cause billions of dollars in green investments to flow to the United States and Europe instead.

Golf professionals and course owners in the Southwest will meet for the first time to discuss how an industry defined by manicured grass can survive climate change, government water cuts and attract players to fairways and greens nourished with less Colorado River water.

Environmentalists will press the Biden administration to restrict exports of water-intensive crops like alfalfa and ask Western state lawmakers to curb the growth of new tree nut farms, in a bid to address fallout from the shrinking Colorado River Basin.

It’s not just drought impacting the snowpack, researchers say. Higher Western temperatures are sucking vital water from the seven-state basin.

Officials recognized that water levels in Idaho are in decline, and some of the main challenges they discussed at the Governor’s Water Summit include population growth, outdated water infrastructure and climate change.

This summer the Bozeman area has seen above normal precipitation, keeping Gallatin County from seeing extensive drought conditions after a fast melting of the snowpack raised concerns.

The Air Force has detected unsafe levels of a likely carcinogen in samples taken at a Montana missile base where a striking number of men and women have reported cancer diagnoses.

The blockbuster movie leaves out the real story’s main characters: New Mexicans.

The Forest Service reports 197 human-caused or undetermined starts since the beginning of June.

Twenty-five years of research show what it takes to fuel wildland firefighters through an average day, and the toll the long seasonal work takes on their bodies.

This year’s wheat harvest season has been particularly difficult. And many farmers are saying it’s hard to stay profitable.

State regulators will vote this month on demanding emissions savings from landlords as the next key step in the climate change battle.

The law prohibits cities from imposing residential growth caps and requires municipalities with existing caps to remove them. The measure is aimed at boosting housing stock to drive down prices.

In southwest Colorado, a cooperative and a land trust partnered to preserve affordable housing.

A statewide organization that helped craft a new design for affordability is using the first-of-its-kind model in a second project.

The overlapping career paths of David Inouye, his son Brian Inouye and daughter-in-law Nora Underwood have them all “outside looking at stuff” at Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory.

It has been described as “landmark” litigation, “groundbreaking” and “first-of-its-kind.” But behind one of the nation’s most watched climate lawsuits — aimed at demonstrating that Montana’s promotion of fossil fuels violates the state’s constitution — are 16 young people, driven by passionate dread over the places they cherish.

Contemplating the mystery of those who have gone missing and remembering a lost friend.

Two tech groups on Monday backed TikTok in its lawsuit seeking to block enforcement of a Montana state ban on use of the short video sharing app before it takes effect on Jan. 1.