Private property rights advocate Fred Grant said he lost longtime friends over his willingness to sit down with environmentalists and forge a bill to protect the Owyhee Canyonlands and the ranching culture.

But the 2009 law that established a science-review process, money for ranchers, more than 517,000 acres of wilderness and 315 miles of wild rivers was worth the effort, he said.

"I don't think there is anybody I trust more than the conservationists on the Owyhee Initiative Board," Grant said.

TELLURIDE, Colo. - A bill receiving a Senate subcommittee hearing this week could represent a rare example of true compromise in the political process. That's what supporters say of a bill currently moving through the Senate that would designate new wilderness and other protected areas in southwestern Colorado. The San Juan Mountains Wilderness Act would bring new protections to over 50,000 acres of high country in San Miguel, Ouray and San Juan counties.

The world has changed a lot from the one I knew as a kid growing up the White River during the 1940s and ‘50s.

Wherever I wanted to go was wide-open and entertainment was simple: Early mornings I'd put on my boots, walk 500 yards, and enter the quiet world of the wild prairie. Walking another half-mile, I could spend hours wading the prairie stream.

Hiking along that river, as well as hunting and fishing with my dad, heightened my interest in the natural world. He could never walk by a shiny rock or the occasional arrowhead, without picking it up.

Recently, a committed group of conservationists came together to passionately discuss Sen. Jon Tester's Forest Jobs and Recreation Act. The energy and excitement surrounding this legislation is nothing short of inspiring.

As president of the Associated Students of the University of Montana, I am filled with great pride because ASUM officially endorsed Tester's bill last fall and has championed it ever since. It is bold, it is here, and it's about time.

The new approach will emphasize private and public partnerships 

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama launched an initiative to develop "a 21st century strategy for America's great outdoors" at a national conservation conference held Friday to kick off meetings across the country aimed at gathering grassroots input and new ideas.

Delivering the first major conservation speech of his presidency, Obama referred to a similar conference convened by President Theodore Roosevelt more than 100 years ago, which founded the modern conservation movement.

President Obama will launch the America's Great Outdoors initiative Friday, an attempt to reshape U.S. conservation policy at a time when the nation is facing new environmental threats but the government is hard-pressed to afford new spending programs.

An act of Congress to set aside 26,000 additional acres of wilderness in the Wasatch Mountain canyons east of the Salt Lake Valley could benefit water users. It could also benefit its sponsor, Utah Rep. Jim Matheson, whose vote against health care legislation has made him unpopular with some Democratic voters in the 2nd Congressional District.