When Wendell Berry, 92, died August 31, the West lost a writer who focused on the importance of rural land. He studied under the writer Wallace Stegner at Stanford University and wrote nine novels about characters — some like himself — who farmed and cared about the land.What also stood out about him was his public leadership — his readiness to march and commit civil disobedience, protesting against national, state and local government when he found their policies harmful and short-sighted. His targets included both a coal-fired and nuclear power plant, our war in Vietnam and the death penalty. He said he also opposed abortion. A Christian, Berry was a critic of organized religion for what he saw as its abstract notion of compassion.

Had Donald Trump been president in 1973, when Richard Nixon signed the Endangered Species Act into federal law, the Gunnison sage-grouse would be extinct. Close to 90 percent of all Gunnison sage-grouse remaining on the planet are in the Gunnison River Basin of west-central Colorado. The rest are in Utah. They’ve been extirpated from Arizona and New Mexico.The species is critically endangered in fact, if not by official decree. It is protected by the Act as just “threatened” because the Interior Department lost a lawsuit brought by Gunnison County, the states of Utah and Colorado, and ranching, livestock and energy-development interests.

I drove to the bluff overlooking the “Gunny” to process the sad news — news that hasn’t yet been made official — that by October a big portion of the lower Gunnison River in western Colorado will be dry. The official term is “fully dewatered.”Monsoons were supposed to be heavy this year. As I looked down at the river in late August, clouds in the distance appeared almost monsoonal. Wisps of rain streamed out, but they evaporated before reaching the parched ground. It just about made me cry.Below me, the North Fork of the Gunnison unceremoniously trickled into the Gunnison River at a place known as Pleasure Park, a weather-beaten outpost of civilization that’s one of the last best-kept secrets in Colorado.

Before the Forest Service logs a drainage or the Bureau of Land Management leases a parcel to a driller, the agency must publish what it intends to do, allow the public to respond, and answer the objections. That arrangement is 56 years old and 640 million acres of federal land run on it.But on July 3 of last year, five federal departments filed rules in the Federal Register that gutted their own environmental review regulations. Agriculture. Interior. Energy. Transportation. Defense filed twice. All six took effect the day they were published, with public comment invited afterward, if at all.

It’s no secret that grizzly bears in the Lower 48 live close to the edge of extinction. Now, with little explanation and almost no time for the public to respond, the Trump administration and three Western governors have proposed to make it easier for states to authorize the killing of these bears.The federal proposal would change regulations that now protect grizzly bears under the Endangered Species Act, stripping away protections that keep grizzlies in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming alive. States that have repeatedly pushed to kill more bears would exercise far more control. The public has until Aug. 17 to comment.

Tracy Stone-Manning, president of the Wilderness Society, sounds the alarm on the largest proposed rollback of conservation protections in American history.“The administration has announced it intends to remove protections on 45 million acres of national forests and allow roads to be punched into some of our wildest public lands."

Here’s a true story about the West: An oil company leases some public land, drills a well, pumps the oil, and posts a $10,000 bond as its promise to clean up the site when the well runs dry. Years later, the company declares bankruptcy — or it simply walks away.The well remains, leaking methane and salty wastewater into the ground for the foreseeable future. Plugging it could run north of $300,000. The company forfeits its $10,000 and vanishes. You and I cover the rest. That math rewards walking away, and it sat protected by federal regulation for more than 60 years.

Conservation biologist Pepper Trail recounts a question he was asked recently: "What keeps you going?" His answer? Wildflowers.He’s politically active, he says, because as a scientist, he’s appalled at this administration's defunding and mismanagement of our nation’s scientific enterprise, from the National Science Foundation to the Centers for Disease Control. But along with resistance, Trail writes, there must be recharge—a hike, a walk, or just sitting in the backyard. And noticing wildflowers.

Grand Canyon educator Marjorie “Slim” Woodruff is irritated by social media influencers who assure anyone reading that an arduous hike is no big deal—anyone can do it.“One of the 'in' hikes these days is the Grand Canyon rim-to-rim” she writes. “This involves hiking 21 to 24 miles with almost 10,000 feet of elevation change. This feat requires serious levels of fitness and preparation. Yet on social media, posters encourage complete strangers to go for it, even daring people to try it twice.”The result of this bragging? Alarming rescue statistics.

This June, the Antiquities Act turns 120 years old— a date worth celebrating, says Utah writer Stephen Trimble. Since Teddy Roosevelt signed the law on June 8, 1906, nearly every president has used it to designate national monuments—a total of nearly 170 cherished preserves.The Utah congressional delegation is not likely to celebrate, Trimble says: “They’re chomping at the bit to challenge this executive power.” In the Senate, Utah Republican Mike Lee is leading the charge against what he calls “presidential abuses of the Antiquities Act.”