National Park

Amache, a former Japanese incarceration camp in Colorado, is now officially part of the National Park system. Many survivors and descendants are excited about the news.

A new report shows that visitors to national parks spent a record amount in surrounding communities last year, providing a major economic boost to those areas.

For years national parks have been running into the same issue, overcrowding. Now many other places, like wildlife refuges, state parks and shorelines are also experiencing this problem.

The National Park Service released visitation statistics this week showing that five of the top 15 most-visited parks in 2022 are in the Mountain West. Big crowds can put pressure on national parks, though.

Black Americans used the Green Book in the mid-1900s to find safe places to travel. Now an organization in the Mountain West is highlighting many of these locations.

Several environmental and scientific groups are petitioning the Department of the Interior to ban lead-based ammunition and tackle in national parks. They argue the move would be meaningful in slowing the spread of lead poisoning in wildlife.

An interview with Nate Schweber, author of the new book, This America of Ours: Bernard & Avis DeVoto and the Forgotten Fight to Save the Wild. In the book, Schweber tells the story of the extraordinary couple who rescued national parks from McCarthyism, and inspired a future of conservation.

They signed onto a letter that calls on the National Park Service to extend reservation windows up to a year out.

A multi-state project is working to provide electric vehicle charging stations and corridors to scenic areas around the Mountain West. ChargeWest is working with state agencies in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona to make this a reality.

A new report shows that Western states vary widely in how much federal public lands within their borders have been protected from extractive uses over the last decade – with some surprising discrepancies.