Mountain Gazette is printed on paper so damned biodegradable with soy ink so environmentally benign that, instead of recycling it, you can just pour milk on it and eat it. The fiber content is guaranteed high.

Mountain Gazette is printed on paper made from the shredded bark of the Laotian nub-nub tree -- considered by environmentalists to be the most renewable paper source in the world. The bark is gathered by a cooperative of single mothers who chew it till it's soft. It is then mixed with highly renewable ox dung and shipped via papyrus dugout canoe to the States, where it is finally made into Mountain Gazette.

Mountain Gazette is printed on paper made from recycled excess packaging that just about every natural foods company in the world uses, while exclaiming, usually on that very packaging, how environmentally friendly their products are because inside the plastic wrapper, which is inside the cardboard box, are food items made from free-ranging pigs and unfettered chickens and cows.

Mountain Gazette has been trying for three years now to print ourselves on paper recycled from old Mountain Gazettes -- the ultimate form of recycling. Thing is, because we have a return rate of almost zero, there are never enough old Gazettes lying around to use for this purpose, so, beginning with this issue, we are recycling ourselves from long-discarded copies of Rocky Mountain Sports and Ski Press magazines, old copies of which are found in abundance in these parts.

Mountain Gazette is printed on paper recycled from all the promotional material that now has to be destroyed after the Bush administration canceled a federally sponsored event celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Wilderness Act. The National Wilderness Summit and Expo was canceled, according to environmental groups, because the Bush administration felt it was too close to the election and would produce publicity unfavorable to the administration. How could they think such a thing?

Reprinted from recent issues of Mountain Gazette, winner of the 2001 Utne Independent Press Award for regional coverage. Subscriptions: $20 (10 issues) from Box 585, Frisco, CO 80443; www. mountaingazette.com