Doug Tompkins, a self-described wildlands philanthropist, died this week of hypothermia after a kayaking accident in the Patagonian Andes that he loved and had devoted his life to protecting. The 72 year old American had fallen in love with Patagonia during a climbing trip to Mount Fitzroy in the 1960s. Back in the United States he made…
Conservationists rejoiced as Shannon Phillips, Alberta’s Minister of Environment and Parks, announced the province’s new government would create two parks totaling 104,000 hectares (a quarter of a million acres) in the mountainous Castle area last Friday. It marked the turning point in a forty year effort to protect this spectacular and biologically diverse area that…
The forests of northwestern North America are aflame. Yesterday I had the eerie experience of flying into a wall of smoke and witnessed a landscape transformed in a strangely beautiful way. Tinder dry from a low winter snow pack and minimal spring and summer rainfall, there were 101 fires burning this week in the forests…
Can the return of a wild animal to its native range help people? Many North American Plains Indians are sure that bringing back wild bison can do just that. This month in Banff National Park three bands of the Stoney Nakoda First Nation and the Samson Cree Nation joined several other tribes to sign the…