Seventy percent of Nevada's 2.7 million residents live in or around Las Vegas. By 2026, the state's population is expected to rise to over 4.3 million, of which 3.3 million will be in Clark County, which includes the city of Las Vegas. But isn't Las Vegas in a desert? Where is it going to get enough water to support its burgeoning and thirsty population?

In the fall of 2005 and spring and summer of 2006, The Nature Conservancy, in cooperation with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and Cascadia Research Collective, conducted a mammal inventory on McChord Air Force Base (MAFB). The military has a vested interest in maintaining habitat and species by congressional mandate and the corresponding burden of recovery. Six major habitat types were designated for trap-line transects; additional directed efforts were employed to target specific species. The resulting effort documented the presence of 36 species, eight of which were bats. Documented species of note include the western gray squirrel (Sciurus griseus), a state “threatened” species, detected by hair-snag tubes; long-eared myotis (Myotis evotis); long-legged myotis (Myotis volans); and the Yuma myotis (Myotis yumanensis). Mammalian diversity on MAFB was influenced by three factors: water (either open water or wetland habitat); large, contiguous tracts of undeveloped acreage; and continuity with Fort Lewis, a large military base immediately adjacent to MAFB. Additionally, Scotch broom (Cytisus scoparius), an invasive woody shrub, was found to support limited mammalian diversity, with the fewest species documented in this habitat type. Given the impending changes due to development, ownership, and climate, this survey will be useful to managers as a baseline for focused species efforts and future comparisons.

Environmental Practice 10:116–124 (2008)

The first green steps to sustainable living leave extra large footprints to follow. That was the message from the San Diego Sustainability Forum by the Association of Environmental Professionals. I left with a mental map and intellectual compass on how to get from point NOW to point NEXT. I left reassured that if California can stretch today's event horizon from what is to the more sustainable triple bottom line of what can be, the rest of the US surely can, too.

Climate change has quickly emerged as one of the hottest topics in NEPA (the National Environmental Policy Act) analysis. Analysis of climate change impacts in NEPA documents is a fairly recent development; many NEPA documents today contain no such analysis. Although a few federal agencies have addressed greenhouse gas emissions and related climate change impacts in documents for some time, such analyses have been historically atypical. The recent widespread media attention on climate change, however, coupled with a substantial increase in litigation focusing on climate change impact analysis in NEPA documents, has driven a rapid rise in interest over how to incorporate such analysis into NEPA analyses. This article is part one of a two-part series, briefly describing the context for considering climate change in NEPA analyses and reviewing the case law and other legal developments centered on NEPA climate change. Part two, to appear in a subsequent issue of Environmental Practice, will discuss methodological approaches, analysis techniques, and mitigation measures for addressing climate change in NEPA analyses.

Belarus is an Eastern European country previously known as a republic of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). In 1991, Belarus established its independence after the dissolution of the USSR. The current political state still retains many of the pre-dissolution social and political positions; the country still maintains many of its old ways of life.

Last May, the man who over 35 years ago signed the order banning DDT was asked to speak at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. The occasion was an annual forum in honor of Rachel Carson, the woman responsible for the public awakening that led to that historic order. Now, in his seventies, William Ruckelshaus has been called upon to direct another landmark environmental effort, Washington State's Puget Sound Partnership (PSP). The PSP is a new state umbrella agency tasked with coordinating and supervising the restoration and protection of Puget Sound, whose watershed is home to over four million people, two-thirds of the state's population. In his remarks at the Rachel Carson Forum and in a follow-up interview, Ruckelshaus addressed the challenges of that herculean task and spoke of the importance to a democratic society of public involvement and public interest in environmental governance.