High Country News is a nonprofit, independent media organization that covers the important issues and stories that define the American West. Our mission is to inform and inspire people – through in-depth journalism – to act on behalf of the West's diverse natural and human communities. High Country News tells stories of the Western U.S. through its people and their relationship to the region's environment, land, water, wildlife and other resources, and in so doing, examines huge political and ecological questions that affect the West and the world.