20 reasons to give on Giving Tuesday
Conservation Northwest / Dec 01, 2020 / Members, Work Updates
From creating safe passage for wildlife to protecting transboundary watersheds from mining pollution, here are 20 reasons from 2020 to support a wild Northwest!
By Matthew Brouwer, Development Director
It’s Giving Tuesday! As December gloom sets in, need a little boost to brighten your day and get you inspired about innovative public lands protection, habitat restoration and wildlife recovery efforts? Here are 20 reasons from 2020 showing how your support is helping us to transform the conservation landscape across the Northwest.
We hope you’ll make a gift today to support these critical conservation programs and help keep our region’s wildlife and wildlands resilient and vibrant now and for future generations.
1. We’re on the ground working with local partners to restore sagelands species and habitat destroyed by this summer’s record-breaking wildfires in north-central Washington.
2. As part of our Cascades to Olympics program, we’ve identified sites along the Satsop and Newaukum Rivers in southwest Washington where we can remove thick brush under highway and freeway bridges to assist movement for large mammals like Roosevelt elk and black bears.
3. Through our coordination, the Working for Wildlife Initiative continues to make progress restoring habitat connectivity in the Okanogan Valley—one of the most important wildlife corridors in the state—by facilitating the acquisition of conservation easements, purchasing key private properties, lobbying for more wildlife crossings on Highway 97, and restoring degraded habitat through forest thinning and road removal. Species such as sharp-tailed grouse, Canada lynx and mule deer are the benefactors.
4. More than 15 additional range riders were in the field this summer in northeast Washington wolf territory thanks to our successful advocacy efforts in Olympia and our Range Rider Pilot Project. Virtually no wolf conflict with livestock occurred where these riders were deployed.
5. In response to ongoing movements for racial justice, we continue to learn how to become more inclusive in our work, raise awareness about communities that face barriers to accessing public lands and wild spaces, and uplift voices of those who have been left out of conservation efforts.
6. We’re monitoring and advising the U.S. Forest Service on major restoration efforts like the Mission and Mount Hull projects affecting tens of thousands of acres of public land on the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest to ensure they continue to meet restoration objectives.
7. Joined a massive lobbying effort that helped pass the Great American Outdoors Act, the biggest conservation win in a generation.
8. Worked with contractors to remove 7.5 miles of fencing in the Quilomene and Whiskey Dick wildlife areas east of Ellensburg, improving habitat connectivity for species like mule deer while continuing to improve public access at these popular recreation areas.
9. Working with Veterans nonprofit VetsCafé exploring opportunities to utilize a 120-acre farm near Centralia as a conservation property and possible site for a future I-5 wildlife crossing in the Cascades to Olympics corridor.
10. Successfully decommissioned 27 miles of road and are now working to protect and restore riparian areas on rangeland on the Tonasket Ranger District in the Okanogan Highlands.
11. Successfully concluded our fisher reintroduction project, releasing more than 250 fishers into the Cascade and Olympic Mountains over 12 years. They’re now having babies!
12. Raised the alarm on a massive clearcut under planning in the Nooksack River Watershed of the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest with the goal of changing it back to a beneficial plan for forest thinning and road removal.
13. WSDOT wildlife cameras caught sight of a fisher utilizing an I-90 underpass demonstrating how these crossings are successfully reconnecting the North and South Cascades. Later in the summer, we learned that a wolverine family had returned to Mount Rainier!
14. As part of a powerful coalition involving the Quinault Nation and Chehalis Tribe and numerous conservation partners, we are pushing back against the proposed Chehalis Dam and helping shape the Chehalis Basin Strategy, a comprehensive plan for restoring aquatic and terrestrial species from salmon to elk in Washington’s second largest watershed.
15. In the Colville National Forest, our local staff continue to work as part of the Northeast Washington Forestry Coalition monitoring and advising the U.S. Forest Service to ensure that forest restoration remains a priority in our state’s least protected national forest.
16. Trail cameras continue to provide us with thousands of pictures of mule deer, cougars, skunks, racoons, bobcats, turkeys and other wildlife safely utilizing the renovated Janis Bridge wildlife crossing on Highway 97.
17. Through our Healthy Watersheds Campaign, we’re fighting for mining policy reform in British Columbia to protect transboundary rivers like the Columbia, Similkameen and Skagit.
18. In 2021, we’ll continue lobbying Congress to pass a massive infrastructure bill that could bring millions of dollars to Washington for new wildlife crossings and habitat restoration projects.
19. We also plan to be before the Washington Supreme Court in 2021 with the hopes of re-interpreting the state Constitution to allow the DNR to manage our public lands beneficially for all the people, not just fiduciary trusts.
20. We’re watching the U.S. Forest Service on the Little Crow Project to ensure timber sale receipts go towards important habitat restoration projects that will improve forest health and water quality in the Little Naches Watershed.