the Adventure Lifestyle magazine

blue has been covering the globe and its natural playgrounds for nearly fi ve years. Whether you adore hiking, climb- ing, surfing or snow exploring, if you're a blue reader you've doubtless come to love the planet through getting to know it firsthand, and learned to respect it through your interaction. After our first couple of years covering extreme adventures from all points on the map, in 2000 we published our first environmental issue-Julia Butterfly hugging her redwood adorned our cover. Last year we planned to take our annual environmental issue a step further. Beyond publishing the magazine, we decided a percentage of our advertisers' revenues would go toward an environmental issue and actually do something. This resulted in the Trail Issue, dedicated to presenting the inspiring world of trail hiking. blue magazine's advertisers provided funding sufficient to help build the trail network the Sinkyone Indians needed on their Ancestral Indian Lands/Wilderness Park, 200 miles north of San Francisco. The trail network was necessitated by pressures on the environment in that area; our project raised awareness of the Sinkyone, who have had the most exemplary tradition of land stewardship in the entire history of North America. Here, in our third annual environmental issue we bring you close up to Alaska's Arctic Wildlife Refuge, and the con- servation debate among politicians, environmentalists , local inhabitants and the oil industry. Again, our advertising revenues (4%) will contribute to a land and habitat conservation project, to be announced in a future issue. 10

• Cover