David Marston

Paonia

David Marston - Publisher of WOTR. Opinion is our biz. We're climate change worriers, but we also cover public lands, water, wildlife, fire and social justice.

Articles

Writers on the Range: Rural Colorado county gets ready for wildfire

2 weeks ago | fortmorgantimes.com | David Marston

When La Plata County in southwestern Colorado needed a director of emergency management in 2021, they found a winner in Shawna Legarza. An experienced firefighter, her career has spanned battling big fires on the ground to overseeing federal firefighting across several states. Now, she’s helping Durango, population 19,000, and others in the county to prepare for the inevitable approach of wildfire.
When reality weighs you down

3 weeks ago | writersontherange.org | Richard Knight |David Marston

A lot of us feel hopeless today. There’s the return of energy dominance as a federal goal, which places oil, gas and coal extraction above all other uses. There’s the extinction crisis affecting animals and plants that’s 1,000 to 10,000 times the regular rate of extinction. Then there’s the erosion of soil, as half of the planet’s topsoil has been lost in the past 150 years.
Wolves need federal protection to survive

1 month ago | writersontherange.org | Ted Williams |David Marston

On January 31,the 30th anniversary of wolves getting reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park, congressional representatives Lauren Boebert (R-CO) and Tom Tiffany (R-WI) and introduced their “Pet and Livestock Protection Act.” It would abolish Endangered Species Act protections for wolves in California, Arizona, New Mexico, Washington, Oregon, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Colorado and Michigan, among other states.
It's still the West against itself

1 month ago | writersontherange.org | Stephen Trimble |David Marston

Nearly 80 years ago, Bernard DeVoto, the Utah-born writer and historian, wrote an essay titled “The West Against Itself” for Harper’s Magazine.
We see the climate change in New Mexico

1 month ago | writersontherange.org | Laura Paskus |David Marston

Here in New Mexico, our growing season has lengthened since the 1970s, even as stream flows have decreased. Fire season starts earlier, lasts longer, and in some years, ignites the forests into record-breaking blazes, like the gargantuan Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon and Black fires in 2022. If you look at the last century in New Mexico, stretches of higher temperatures have lengthened; heat waves are hotter and nights, consistently warmer.
The gutting of our national park system

1 month ago | writersontherange.org | Ben Long |David Marston

Imagine a million-acre wilderness: Mountain peaks. Rushing rivers. Bears and wolves. Now imagine a city the size of, say, Chicago. In my corner of Montana every summer, those two things merge. Montana is home to Glacier National Park, and 30 years ago, the park had about a million visitors a year. Nowadays, the park attracts more than 3 million people a year. It’s like a major city teleported to the spine of the Rockies. Those visitors have needs—food, restrooms, parking lots and trails.
Why do we blame lions?

1 month ago | writersontherange.org | Wendy Keefover |David Marston

Mule deer herds are declining across the West for many reasons. But three states, Utah, Wyoming and Nevada, want to pin the blame on mountain lions. Utah has now opened the floodgates to year-round lion hunting and trapping, while Nevada continues to resist trapping reforms. In Wyoming, a proposed law allowing lion hunting and trapping without restrictions was thwarted only after legislators heard overwhelming opposition from citizens as well as the state’s wildlife department.
Trump's policies put us in economic danger

2 months ago | writersontherange.org | David Marston

Donald Trump’s platform was clear when he was running for president. He promised to make bold improvements—quickly raising revenue by imposing tariffs on foreign goods, slashing prices at grocery stores, and ending fraud and wasteful government spending through greater efficiency. None of this is happening. After a few short weeks, inflation is rising, potentially crushing economic growth. In January 2025, inflation expectations were 3.3%.
Beware the Trojan Horse targeting public land

2 months ago | writersontherange.org | Ben Long |David Marston

Sometimes when I drive past the little house my wife and I bought when we first married, 30 years ago, it makes me sad. Not only because of nostalgia, but because of economics. We were young professionals and bought a cute one-bedroom crackerbox in a small Montana town for less than $50,000. Today on Zillow, that house lists for more than $300,000. There’s no way salaries have kept up with that kind of inflation. Clearly, rising costs are hitting the working class hard.
The Salton Sea’s weirdness is what’s appealing

2 months ago | writersontherange.org | Dennis Hinkamp |David Marston

Fascinating and fetid, the Salton Sea in southern California lures me back, every year. Driving south from Utah, I take bits of historic Highway 66 and then skirt Joshua Tree National Park to cruise through little known Box Canyon to Mecca, California. When the landscape opens up, I see the beautiful wreck of the Salton Sea, created by the collision of geology and bad luck. The sea occupies a much smaller footprint of what used to be Lake Cahuilla, which disappeared in the late 1500s.