Winner of the Wallace Stegner Prize in Environmental Humanities

In late 2012, more than one hundred people gathered to hear a long-awaited announcement: the Trust for Public Land had succeeded in preventing natural gas development in the remote Hoback Basin of Wyoming. This landmark agreement—purchasing leases from Plains Exploration Company—would not have come to pass without the extraordinary will and expertise of local citizens. Unchallenged, the proposed natural gas development in the national forest near the hamlet of Bondurant, Wyoming, would have brought roads, pipelines, water and air pollution, and a complete change in the character of the landscape and its communities.
     Saving Wyoming's Hoback tells the story of the Hoback and Noble Basins in northwestern Wyoming and of the citizens who worked together to protect the land that they loved. Retired schoolteachers, mine workers, big game hunting outfitters, and other stakeholders brought together their knowledge of the area to achieve a single goal: to prevent the industrialization of the wild country that was their home. While some disagreed about specifics, their work as individuals and as coalitions is an inspiring example of how determined citizens can make a difference. 

Florence Rose Shepard is professor emerita in the department of Educational Studies at the University of Utah.

Susan Marsh is an award-winning writer living in Jackson, Wyoming.