Sarah Gilman

Assistant Editor

Many Western towns were once home to a vibrant mining culture of “men with boots on,” as High Country News Editor Jonathan Thompson wrote in a recent editorial. That is, until wild fluctuations in metal prices, increased federal regulation, and ample opportunities abroad drove a number of big mining companies out of their Western strongholds. But with the rise of China and India boosting demand, metal prices are again sky-high and mining in the West, as reported in a recent High Country News package, is on its way back — for better or worse.

Now, another subset of “men with boots on” (and likely more than a few booted women) — hunters and anglers, some of the West’s longest active conservationists — is hoping that the impacts (bootprints?) of that resurgence on public lands and wildlife will be better controlled by the federal government than during booms of the past. About 400 sportsmen’s groups, led by the National Wildlife Federation, the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership and Trout Unlimited under the umbrella of Sportsmen United for Sensible Mining, are calling for Congress to get moving on (longstanding) efforts to reform the antiquated 1872 mining law.

(Read on …)