My Page: Brooke Hewes

<< Newer articles <<    Author Home     >> Older articles >>

Group Profile

The view was stunning. Rugged, snow-capped peaks. Rock crags towering over frozen alpine lakes. Mountains as far as the eye could see…um, well, as far as most eyes peering out from the backseat of a four-passenger airplane cruising over Montana’s northern Bitterroot Mountains could see. Mine were shut — my mind busy with more pressing things, like not puking all over the leather seat in front of me.

The pilot and other passenger, however, seemed unperturbed by the jostling, or the dark storm clouds crowding the thin air between the mountains and us. They were too busy looking back and forth from a Lolo National Forest map spread across the cockpit and the proposed wilderness in the Great Burn below. Equipped with a digital camera and GPS, both men were ready to document any snowmobiles or snowmobile tracks in areas they shouldn’t be. My tumult, and their surveillance, was part of the Great Burn Study Group’s winter monitoring program. [more]

The story of the Inuit is old, and one rooted firmly to place and people and tradition. It is also one that Sheila Watt-Cloutier, chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference and guest speaker at today's Wilderness Institute Lecture "Arctic Environment, Climate Change and Inuit Human Rights," hopes will inspire action against global warming.

Watt-Cloutier is one of 155,000 Inuit people living in mostly coastal areas of Greenland, Siberia, northern Canada and Alaska who has watched frozen ground thaw and sea ice melt over the last 15 years. And what is occurring in her homelands, she warns, is permeating the globe.

"The Arctic is a barometer for climate change," she says. "We are all connected through melting ice." [more]

Women Filmmakers at Big Sky Documentary Film Festival

What does it mean to be a woman and a filmmaker? What perspectives and qualities do women alone bring to the screen? And when, if ever, should making films be about being female?

Five women filmmakers explored these and other questions during the Women in Documentary Film Panel at the Big Sky Film Fest this afternoon. [more]

Biking for a Cause

With winter storms blowing through much of western Montana, today seems an unlikely day for a bike ride. Unlikely. but not impossible. In fact, Missoula-based GlobalWarmingSolution.org Executive Director David Merrill hopes to top last year's turnout at the second annual "Kyoto Bike Ride -- Pedaling for a Change." [more]

Missoula Underground

Western Montana is finally poking its head out of drought. And while reveries of robust rivers and a lush Missoula Valley swirl for this spring, one may also wonder about our groundwater: first, is it dry? second, will this wet winter save it?

Well, as it turns out, our aquifer is less vulnerable to drought than one might think.

“Climate causes relatively little fluctuation in the aquifer,� says geologist Tom Patten with Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology’s Ground Water Information Center of the Missoula Valley Aquifer, the valley’s sole source of drinking water. [more]

Multiple Use

Underlying much of the heated debate about National Forest management today are a couple of loaded - and surprisingly hard-to-answer - questions: Do a cluster of recent changes in forest management, notably those relating to forest planning, motorized use and roadless designation, signal an increasing politicization of public land management? And, more specifically, did partisan political maneuvering (and by extension campaign contributions) trump science in shaping these changes?

As the University of Montana’s College of Forestry and Conservation’s Professor Martin Nie points out, the nuances of political influence largely occur in a black box: whether politicians are influenced by contributions, or whether contributions are made based on like minded politics is difficult to know. Most of the folks I've spoken with think that, indeed, the new Forest Service planning rules are enabling elected political officials and appointees to make the crucial decisions on public lands - decisions that that have long been the province of federal civil servants. (For some advocates of the changes, that's part of the point). But rather than string together a conclusion, I will present and let you, New West readers, do the deducing. [more]

Images of the Hunt

While much of Montana’s capitol was abuzz with school funding yesterday afternoon, another issue briefly visited the holiday-trimmed halls. Beneath the stained glass, golden rotunda, advocates gathered in opposition of the bison hunt, the state’s first in 15 years that began exactly one month ago. [more]

Sex, Money and Meth Addiction

A Missoula County jury unanimously granted a teenage girl $2 million in punitive damages Monday, validating what prosecuting attorney Monte Beck called the courageous struggle of a young girl who had been sexually abused by Dick Dasen, a Kallispell businessman and now convicted sex offender. The award was in addition to the $200,000 in compensatory damages granted Friday. Today’s monetary award, unlike the compensatory damages meant to compensate the girl for actual harm, is intended to deter others as well as punish the defendant for crimes committed.

“What the jury found today was symbolic of the rights of all people,� Beck said. “It said that you cannot violate people’s body and soul.� [more]

Bears

The grizzly bear is a species that has endured the push and pull of development across the West since the 1800s. Yet, in light of the possible delisting of Yellowstone bears from federal protection under the Endangered Species Act, perhaps the bruins are faring alright after all.

Yes and no, said Montana Fish and Wildlife's Chris Smith at the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee’s winter meeting in Missoula this week. [more]

Holiday Cheer

For most of the year, the 7-foot tall, 5-foot wide ponderosa pine just north of Interstate 90 between Orange and Reserve streets lives in relative anonymity. Perched a few feet from the highway on a gentle slope, the loner garners nary a nod by zooming cars.

Last Friday, as he has done for the last three years, Hal Padden changed that, donning the little tree with a dose of holiday cheer.

“I drive that section a lot and always see that little tree standing there,� he says. “One day I just thought it would be neat to throw up some ornaments.� [more]

<< Newer articles <<    Author Home     >> Older articles >>