The last monthly issue of Forest Watch magazine was August, 1993. The first issue of Different Drummer was winter, 1994. Although less frequent than Forest Watch, each issue was 64 pages long compared with 28 for a typical Forest Watch. Each issue focused on one topic: the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service, the Endangered Species Act, state land and resource agencies, and so forth.
Different Drummer eventually published 13 issues. I was the sole writer of about six of them, and the main writer for several more. One person who helped write a couple of issues was Karl Hess IV, who had a Ph.D. in range ecology and whose father, Karl Hess III, was a well-known libertarian. While I was an environmentalist who had become libertarian, Karl was a libertarian who had become an environmentalist, so we fit well together.
In line with the Different Drummer idea, I changed the name of Cascade Holistic Economic Consultants, which had always been awkward, to the Thoreau Institute. Henry David Thoreau is sometimes considered the first environmentalist, but he was also deeply suspicious of big government. I felt this represented the focus of my work: finding ways to improve the environment without big government. Continue reading
