Natural Resources

"While many Americans regard Confederate statues as symbols of hate and want them removed from public spaces, the National Park Service values them."

"Companies are hunting for lithium near Moab, Utah." "White Oil, Oro Blanco, Extraterrestrial Gold: lithium, the lightweight element key to rechargeable batteries, has recently acquired a slew of hyperbolic nicknames. As the demand for electric cars, laptops and smartphones has surged, the search is on for more domestic sources of this energy-critical element."

"ELY, Minn. — It is high season in the Boundary Waters, when legions of canoe-carrying trucks transform this small outpost 20 miles from Canada into one of the nation's primary gateways to wilderness recreation."

"The federal government has reached an agreement with local Inuit that will lead to the protection and management of a massive swath of northern sea in one of the most ecologically sensitive regions of the Canadian Arctic."

"U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke announced Wednesday he intends to approve a plan to accept the donation of a 3,600-acre ranch that would open the landlocked Sabinoso Wilderness in northeastern New Mexico to the public."

"On dusty land in Mission, Tex., near the Mexican border, Marianna Trevino Wright recently took a walk with a contractor. She was showing off her effort to turn the earth surrounding the National Butterfly Center into 'an oasis for butterflies,' she said — with 10,000 native milkweed plants that a dwindling number of monarch butterflies use as habitat in their arduous and yearly migration from Mexico and across the United States to Canada."

"Los Angeles is woefully park poor. Less than half of L.A. County residents have easy access to a park, and three-quarters of the public spaces we do have are falling apart."

"Just beyond the southeast corner of Joshua Tree National Park, rows of boarded-up houses, gouged mountainsides and concrete ruins are an ugly reminder of the never-ending battle over the West’s public lands."

"The Trump administration is wading into one of the oldest and most contentious debates in the West by encouraging more coal mining on lands owned by the federal government. It is part of an aggressive push to both invigorate the struggling American coal industry and more broadly exploit commercial opportunities on public lands."

"The fate of these carbon-hoarding habitats will play a big role in our planet’s climate future".