Since 1989, Conservation Northwest (formerly Northwest Ecosystem Alliance) has used science and skillful political advocacy to protect and restore the ecosystems of the Pacific Northwest. They have maintained a grand vision: natural areas that are healthy enough to sustain viable populations of large mammals like grizzly bears, wolves, and lynx. The group's successful track record of combining grassroots organizing, media, and science skills with passion and innovative strategy, has established Conservation Northwest as one of America's premier regional conservation forces and foremost authorities on state and federal land management issues in the Northwest.
Over the years, the group's staff have developed a reputation as calculated risk-takers. Executive Director Mitch Friedman and Columbia Highlands Director Tim Coleman cut their teeth during the contentious struggle over the future of ancient forests in the 1980s and ‘90s, including the eventual development of President Clinton's sweeping Northwest Forest Plan. Though ultimately unsuccessful, the group fought the infamous 1996 salvage rider by posting a high timber sale bid to protect Thunder Mountain in central Washington’s Okanogan National Forest. Success did come in 1999, when against formidable odds Conservation Northwest raised $16.5 million from 5,000 individuals in just 18 months to save 25,000 acres of prime lynx habitat in the Loomis State Forest.
Not a group to rest on its laurels, Conservation Northwest next spearheaded the Cascades Conservation Partnership, a successful four-year campaign to protect old-growth forests, wildlife habitat and recreation trails in Washington's Central Cascades. By raising $15.73 million in private funds that leveraged another $68.52 million in public funds, the Partnership protected 38,000 acres of this special wild place.
Nearly five years ago, Northwest Ecosystem Alliance merged with the northeastern Washington-based Kettle Range Conservation Group to form Conservation Northwest. Conservation Northwest's combined 6,000+ members fund more than 70 percent of the group's annual revenue and maintain a strong grassroots presence across Washington State. The 23 staff members (and two honorary staff dogs) work from offices in Bellingham, Seattle, Republic, and Spokane.
In 2005, Conservation Northwest announced a new initiative for the Columbia Highlands in northeastern Washington - an effort to develop a community vision for the Colville National Forest that sustains good timber jobs, restores forests, preserves wilderness, protects wildlife, and ensures outdoor recreation opportunities for everyone.
Scientists have identified the Columbia Highlands as a key corridor for the movement of large animals between the Cascades and Rockies. The region is home to the last population of mountain caribou in the lower 48 states, a majestic mammal once numerous throughout the central and northern Rocky Mountains. The area is rich in wildlife: bears (both black and brown), wolverine, lynx, great gray owl, northern goshawk, spruce grouse, elk, moose, bull, red-band, and cutthroat trout.
Conservation Northwest’s staff came together with local timber mill owners and recreation groups to form the Northeast Washington Forestry Coalition (NEWFC). This group has worked with tribes, local residents, ranchers, and the Forest Service in developing a blueprint for the Colville National Forest that would include preservation of remaining wildlands, sustainable community forestry, and restoration of areas affected by poor management practices and fire exclusion.
In all, less than three percent of the Colville National Forest is currently protected as wilderness -- that's just 33,000 acres (Salmon-Priest Wilderness Area near the Idaho border) to meet the needs of grizzly bear, mountain caribou, and people. Yet there's nothing new about the idea of protected wilderness in eastern Washington.
In 1984, Congress designated the Salmon-Priest Wilderness, located in the Selkirk Mountains in the extreme northeast corner of the state. Thirty years later, and despite tens of thousands of hours of documentary work done by people who love these lands, not a single acre more has been protected.
Conservation Northwest's collaborative approach to protecting wild land on the Colville National Forest could be the wave of the future in the Intermountain West. If its past track record of success is any indication, this innovative group will lead a next-generation effort to designate new wilderness areas for the Columbia Highlands.
For more information, visit Conservation Northwest's website.
