The Rural Blog

A digest of events, trends, issues, ideas and journalism from and about rural America, by the Institute for Rural Journalism, based at the University of Kentucky. Links may expire, require subscription or go behind pay walls. Please send news and knowledge you think would be useful to benjy.hamm@uky.edu.

The Rural Blog

PAGES

'On the Front Porch' discussions return on Aug. 21. Pipa and Orrell begin with big change in northern Appalachia.

Opinion: Public lands should not be sold. Open lands are our shared 'inheritance. . . and space of democracy'

Opinion: Americans should be alarmed at the 'dangerous idea' Congress is floating, which could 'kill' rural America

Bound by a passion to protect a 'pristine corner of Colorado,' this 'ragtag organization' helped change government policy

New rule increases royalties for oil and gas companies that drill on public lands; bond will be at least 15 times more

Opinion: Sell this national treasure to the National Park Service, not the highest private bidder

Researchers share how climate change is altering Yellowstone; they hope education and science can help

Hardrock mining companies pay 'a pittance' for minerals mined from public lands. Some say taxpayers need more.

Opinion: Backcountry access is a tangle of public lands, private property and people treading all over the place

Feds want to allow leasing of federal land for conservation; critics call it a back-door attack on grazing, mining, drilling

Moving USDA research units from D.C. to K.C. made them less productive, cost them many veteran staff, GAO says

Showdown in Wyoming may define the rights of public access to checkerboarded public lands in the Western U.S.

What Joe Manchin got in the climate bill for West Virginia, energy industries, sick coal miners, Toyota and himself

Wild-horse advocacy group puts numbers on slaughter buys

Apply for environmental reporting grants for projects covering public lands by May 31

Interior opens federal land for new drilling but raises fees

Fact-checking assertions about oil and gasoline prices

Interior may make make oil, gas companies pay more to drill on federal lands; wouldn't affect home energy costs much

Biden restores Bears Ears and other national monuments to Obama-declared sizes and protections, reversing Trump

Manning-Stone OKd to lead Bureau of Land Management