Earth Day, Every Day: Members make conservation progress possible

Our goal is to make each Earth Day wilder than the last. Will you join us?

by matthew coomer, membership and operations associate

At Conservation Northwest, we’ve worked to protect, connect, and restore wildlands and wildlife for 30 years. For us, every day is Earth Day. Through our decades of saving and cherishing our rich natural heritage, our members gave us the support to make all of our conservation progress possible.

Together, we’ve protected hundreds of thousands of acres of native habitat, from saving popular recreation areas where the Cascades meet the Salish Sea, to restoring old forests in the Cascades and across the wildlands of northeast Washington. This work reflects our core belief that healthy ecosystems are essential to thriving communities for all people. Our Sagelands Heritage Program (SHP) showcases this commitment: it aims to maintain, restore and connect central Washington’s expansive shrub-steppe through close collaboration with local communities and Tribal Nations.

Thanks to the support of our members, programs like this work toward connected wildland corridors around the state. As threats like climate change intensify, it’s more important than ever that wildlife have safe havens and the freedom to move between them and adapt.

Our team also reconnects habitat fragmented by roadways like Interstate 90 by championing wildlife crossings that keep both animals and drivers safe. Elk, mule deer, and other animals are using these lifelines on I-90, and our members came together in full force to help fund the first undercrossing on Highway 97. These connections work in concert with our habitat restoration and conservation projects to protect and connect our region’s wild landscapes.

Our community gives us the support we need to restore iconic wildlife including wolves, fishers and other threatened and endangered species. Thanks to our many dues-paying members, we are able to lead the Citizen Wildlife Monitoring Project—one of the nation’s largest such citizen science programs, working to harness the energy of volunteers to track wildlife and inform conservation efforts.

We’re also on the ground restoring landscapes that many species and communities depend on through efforts like the Central Cascades Watershed Restoration program. These diverse projects succeed because our members believe in Conservation Northwest’s vision for a wilder future.

For the past 30 years, we’ve succeeded in keeping the northwest wild, thanks to your help. But to continue our strategic, innovative approach to conserving our northwest heritage in the face of a rapidly changing environment, we need more support.

We welcome anyone to give and join the Conservation Northwest community, where we know that the health of the land and the health of people are forever linked. Full membership and access to our online activism platform is only $25 on Earth Day, and it’s just one click away! And thank you to all of our members for helping us make every day Earth Day since 1989.

Help us make each Earth Day wilder than the last by joining Conservation Northwest as a member today!