Idaho’s White Cloud Mountains seem like an unlikely place for the beginning of a positive shift in public-land management. They gleam high and cold above the seemingly endless sagebrush plains of southern Idaho, one of the most conservative states in the West. Yet it was here last year that Republicans worked with environmentalists to plant a legislative seed that may help reverse a century of decline for native plants and wildlife all over the West. Summers last only a few weeks in the White Cloud Mountains, and with off-road vehicles and mining closing in on these once-remote expanses, environmentalists have campaigned since the 1970s for wilderness protection. Recently, frustration with congressional inaction led to a push for a 600,000-acre national monument, which President Obama seemed ready to endorse. Then the Republican Idaho congressional delegation agreed to compromise on a 275,000-acre wilderness bill that passed last August. Read More