Justin Higginbottom

Print and radio journalist

Audio

Jefferson Public Radio • 6th February 2025

Pineros in Southern Oregon: How Jackson County became a center for guest workers in forestry

Non-logging forestry work, like planting trees or fuels reduction, is big business in Oregon. But if you’re picturing those doing this work as classic lumberjacks — plaid shirts, big beards, white guys — think again. Foreign guest workers make up much of this labor. And Jackson County is a national center for the industry.

Jefferson Public Radio • 25th January 2025

50 years in the woods: How Oregon's forestry workforce has evolved

Since the 1970s, billions of dollars in federal contracts have gone to forestry work like replanting trees or fuels reduction. Oregon has long been a center for businesses getting those contracts. But that industry looked a lot different 50 years ago.

Jefferson Public Radio • 15th November 2024

Chillin' at Oregon's 'first legal psilocybin concert'

Oregon’s first psilocybin service centers opened around a year ago, providing psychedelic mushrooms to treat conditions like PTSD. One center in Southern Oregon is trying to increase access with group-psychedelic experiences — like a magic mushroom concert.

Jefferson Public Radio • 29th October 2024

Can an 'America First' board fix a troubled rural transportation district?

The Umpqua Public Transportation District serves over 20,000 riders. It’s a new district, only formed in 2019, but important in a region with elderly and low-income residents, many left behind after the timber industry declined. Lately, some have been worried about the district's future.

Jefferson Public Radio • 27th June 2024

From train history to train hopping, a California town celebrates America’s rails

The town of Dunsmuir in far Northern California hosted its first Railroad Days in 1941. But the town’s relationship with the railroad industry has changed over the decades. And a subculture of train enthusiasts now celebrate alongside the town — in their own way.

Jefferson Public Radio • 7th June 2024

Mothers struggling with addiction find an oasis in Southern Oregon

The opioid epidemic, boosted by the arrival of the drug fentanyl, has torn through communities in Southern Oregon. It’s also having a devastating impact on mothers struggling with addiction. An innovative facility in the Rogue Valley is helping those parents and their children.

Jefferson Public Radio • 6th May 2024

California mobile home park residents face persistent PFAS water contamination

Man-made chemicals known as PFAS, which stands for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are used to make a lot of modern products. They’ve also been linked to health impacts including cancer. Despite legislation, addressing PFAS contamination at small water systems remains a challenge in California.

Jefferson Public Radio • 10th April 2024

Tree sitters protest old-growth logging from 100 feet above the forest floor

Old-growth trees provide vital wildlife habitat, help forest ecosystems and store massive amounts of carbon. But some activists in Southern Oregon claim the Bureau of Land Management is allowing the logging of old-growth trees despite recent calls by the Biden administration for protection.

Jefferson Public Radio • 13th March 2024

A death doula keeps legacies alive in rural Oregon

“I spend my week reminding this group of people that they matter. That their life's work is just not going to disappear,” she says. “I think that's what we all want — for someone to be able to remember our names.”

DW • 13th December 2023

Broken dreams in Sagaing

Myanmar's democratically elected government was ousted in a military coup in 2021. Since then, ethnic minority armed groups and pro-democracy fighters have been battling against the junta's forces. Millions of people are displaced.

DW • 30th August 2023

Staying Alive in Chin State

More than two and a half years ago, the military in Myanmar ousted a democratically elected government. Attacks on civilians still continue. We hear from people in Chin state in western Myanmar.

DW • 13th July 2023

Finding Love in a Myanmar Scam Center

Crime enclaves have grown along Myanmar's border since the coup in 2021. These new cities are hubs for online gambling, drugs and lately online cryptocurrency scams. It's big money for criminal syndicates and the Myanmar military's allies who control the territory. How are the scams playing out and how are they linked to human trafficking?

DW • 14th June 2023

Myanmar's Former Political Prisoners Find Healing Through Resistance

Since the military coup in Myanmar over two years ago that ousted the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, the ruling military regime has arrested tens of thousands of people. We hear from former political prisoners, talk about the targeted killings of civilians and hear from displaced Rohingya in camps in Bangladesh.

KZMU • 18th April 2022

Benefits for Those Harmed by the Nuclear Industry Are Expiring. Advocates Are Racing to Help as Many as They Can

Uranium created a lot of wealth in this region while helping the country build its nuclear arsenal during the Cold War. But it came at a price.

KSJD • 22nd July 2022

Chasing Sunlight: Inside the Growing Field of Archaeoastronomy

There’s a growing number of observers finding a connection with solar events and some rock-art panels. The study of these interactions is called archeo-astronomy… or cultural astronomy… or ancient astronomy. And the field relies on the work of amateurs scouring the Southwest for examples. For Rocky Mountain Community Radio, Justin Higginbottom reports from Moab.

Rory Tyler wasn’t in Moab for long before he had a hunch about “The Snake.” He had moved from Oregon in 1993 and soon after hiked with

KZMU • 6th June 2022

Modern-day Trappers Are Using Beavers to Fight the Effects of Drought

At the chalky slopes of the Book Cliffs in Southeastern Utah, Christine Sandbach, a graduate student at Utah State University, has a beaver in a cage that she’s trying to get a read on.

“Whenever we interact with them we record their behavior. So she just kind of turned away when I opened up the cage cover. So that would be fearful,” says Sandbach, standing in a leafy oasis along the shallow Price River.

Sandbach is one a number of modern-day trappers searching the state for beavers in a partn

Aspen Public Radio • 17th January 2022

Can 'Molten Salt' Nuclear Plants Replace Coal?

Coal-producing Emery County is one of the only regions in Utah to have seen a drop in population in the last decade.

And those that remain have lost good paying jobs as the state transitions away from coal.

A new research facility wants to bring back revenue and jobs by experimenting with a number of new technologies.

One of those projects is a type of nuclear reactor some think could be the future of power.

KZMU • 25th April 2022

Backcountry Flying Is Taking Off in Southeastern Utah

Gary Hilley’s job as a mechanic usually keeps him grounded during the week. But when he’s free he heads above Southeastern Utah. Today Hilley is in his two-seat plane called a Supercub, a lightweight craft able to take off and land with only a few hundred feet of runway, flying over slot canyons and mesas, heading south with Canyonlands National Park in the distance.

“So all these orange dots are runways around us. But we’re probably going to go either to Mineral [Bottom] or Horseshoe [Canyon]

KSJD • 4th October 2022

Among Utah’s wild horses roam a “genetic treasure”

Among Utah’s wild horses roam a special breed with a history stretching back to Spanish colonialists.

They've remained isolated in a mountain range near the Nevada border for hundreds of years which helped keep their bloodline intact.

As the Bureau of Land Management rounds up the herd to protect rangeland health, some say this breed shouldn't be treated like your average mustang.

There’s nearly 100,000 wild horses and burros in the West, according to the Bureau of Land Management.

Utah alon

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