Stand with Wilderness

 

Dear Friends of Wilderness Watch:

 

Wildlife and solitude are integral parts of Wilderness. While backpacking a few years ago with my wife, Bobbi, we saw a bear and her cub—at a safe distance—in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness. It was the first time Bobbi had seen a bear in the wild. The bears were carefully walking down a wooded draw toward Moose Creek, in the heart of this expansive wilderness. It was early July, the snowpack was still abundant, and the sky was filled with clouds in motion.  There was utter silence: no cars or bikes racing by, no helicopters to shatter the calm, no chainsaws or ATVs whining in the distance.  Nothing to disrupt the bears or us. It was a great day.

 

It would be nice if having a law on the books were all it took to keep our Wildernesses safe, but as you know it’s not enough.  It takes eternal citizen vigilance and support from people like you.

 

Earlier this year, a Wilderness Watch lawsuit stopped the Forest Service and State of Idaho’s plan for hundreds of helicopter landings to capture and collar elk as part of a wolf-elk management plan that calls for killing more than half the wolves in the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness. The State is now challenging the judge’s decision, but we’ll fight to make it stand.

 

Wilderness Watch is also leading the charge to protect the Wilderness Act from a bill in Congress that would open all Wildernesses to mountain bikes and other forms of mechanized transport, and another that would effectively repeal the Wilderness Act by allowing all kinds of habitat manipulation or predator control done in the name of game management, hunting, or angling.

 

And we’ve joined the battle to stop the Trump Administration’s undoing of national monument designations around the country. There are three-dozen Wildernesses within these monuments, and they will be harmed if the surrounding landscapes lose the protections they now have as national monuments. 

 

Please consider making a special summer contribution to help Wilderness Watch continue to safeguard our treasured National Wilderness Preservation System.

 

Saving Wilderness has never been easy, but it’s especially challenging with Donald Trump in the White House and the most virulently anti-wilderness members of Congress running key House and Senate committees.  Support from people like you has always fueled our efforts and successes. More than ever, we need your continued support.

 

I have always been amazed at the generosity of our members and supporters, and what together we’ve been able to accomplish.  Our efforts to protect Wilderness from damaging projects and activities are unparalleled, and we’ve built an unmatched body of case law for safeguarding our wildest lands. 

 

This fall we’ll launch a new outreach effort with renowned wilderness enthusiast George Wuerthner, our new wilderness advocate-organizer. "Geo" will travel the country, spread the good word about Wilderness, help wilderness advocates better protect the Wildernesses in their backyards, and organize against congressional efforts to weaken or repeal the Wilderness Act. To aid this effort, we’ve also created a social media project that reaches tens-of-thousands of wilderness advocates, journalists, and elected officials each month.  And our outreach is growing.

 

Wilderness Watch depends on members and people like you for 90 percent of our operating funds.  In these politically challenging times, we must engage more forcefully than ever in the struggle ahead. Please be as generous as you can to protect the Wilderness we all love.

 

Together, we’ll move forward to provide the kind of protection our nation’s irreplaceable Wilderness deserves.

For the wilds,

Gary Macfarlane
Board President

Please consider making a special summer contribution to help Wilderness Watch continue to safeguard our treasured National Wilderness Preservation System.

Photos: Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness, Idaho by Gary Macfarlane

Contact Us

Wilderness Watch
P.O. Box 9175
Missoula, MT 59807
P: 406-542-2048
E: wild@wildernesswatch.org

Minneapolis, MN Office
2833 43rd Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN 55406

P: 612-201-9266

Moscow, ID Office
P.O. Box 9765
Moscow, ID 83843

Stay Connected

flogo RGB HEX 512   Twitter Logo gold   Insta gold

Search

Go to top