‘Quite frustrating:’ what it’s like to have a treaty with the United States
Heirs to the 1855 Treaty of Point Elliott explain their ancestors’ wisdom and how they defend it today.
Convocation of crows, sea-lebrity sea lions and what is that nasty smell?
Mishaps and mayhem from around the region.
Utah is killing the Great Salt Lake
Profligate waste and perverse tax incentives are drying up the West’s largest natural body of water.
What it’s like inside Eloy’s detention center as a trans woman
Karla Saenz, a Venezuelan asylum seeker, alleges neglect and transphobia, but also found fortitude and solidarity.
‛Nada ni nadie robará mi identidad’
Una solicitante de asilo venezolana transgénero relata sus 44 días en uno de los centros de detención más mortíferos del país.
The conversations we don’t have about safety outdoors
History instructs Black Americans to fear the outdoors. But creating new memories outside will inform our future.
In Inupiaq, when the weather talks, you listen
Sila is living with us and decides for us what to do with our days.
The Spokane burns show that not even suburbia is immune to wildfire
The Old Trails Fire burned through the city’s northwest corner — an area considered outside the highest risk zone.
Federal plan makes steep Colorado River water cuts to Arizona, California and Nevada
The Bureau of Reclamation’s final environmental review leaves the door open for states to reach an agreement on how to share the water — and for legal battles.
‘Everything is in dialogue’
Two editors have a conversation about our special conversations issue.
Deb Haaland’s vision for New Mexico comes from tradition
A Q&A with the state’s likely next governor about tribal sovereignty and politics.
Reporting on the West is a team effort
HCN gets a new team member and a first union contract.
A longtime donor gives back
Author and naturalist Audrey Benedict helps support science through good reporting.
Can the last casino in Primm, Nevada, save a desert community?
A last-minute deal is another bet on the town’s unlikely survival.
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In This Issue
August 2026: The Conversations Issue
Our August issue celebrates “Conversations” — exploring a variety of communication, from the unspoken interactions of flowers and fungi to the human need to discuss the complicated issues we face today. We also examine what happens when communication fails, and words are used to misinform…
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Water
The clock is ticking for New Mexico to cut Rio Grande water use
Collapsing mountains in Alaska are causing massive tsunamis
Can restoration save the Delta smelt?
Wildlife
Feds transfer grizzly bear management to states
How a Utah Republican’s quiet battle for hunting access undercut LandBack hopes
The Klamath Tribes couldn’t get federal dollars for salmon. Then the Yurok stepped in
Public Lands
What’s destroying Utah’s monuments
A ban on chainsaws in wilderness is performative, not practical
The conflict over permanent climbing anchors in wilderness
Indigenous Affairs
Tribally contested Badger Mountain solar project canceled by developer
Alaska Native communities prepare for man camps driven by new mining boom
Bears Ears cuts also end first-of-its-kind tribal land commission
Communities
The Chinese immigrants trafficked on New Mexico’s weed farms
Let’s go in on the American dream, together
Meet the students graduating from Montana’s smallest classes
Books
On Mount Shasta, a photographic record outlasts living memory
What can we learn from salt lakes?
Badger signs: An essay from Terry Tempest Williams’ new book ‘The Glorians’
In the News
The West’s forever fire season
How climate change makes wildfire more likely to happen all year round.