Help us keep the Northwest wild in 2021

Dear Friend of the Northwest,

If you’ve already made a gift in 2020, our deepest gratitude for your support. You can check out here and here all the ways your support for Conservation Northwest has gone to work this past year powering innovative and impactful conservation projects that are making a real difference for Northwest wildlife and wildlands.

If you haven’t yet made a gift, there’s still time! Despite the pandemic, we’ve forged ahead on a number of important projects and initiatives, setting up 2021 to be another banner year for our work.

 

Whether it’s climate change or large-scale habitat destruction, it often feels like the environmental problems of today are insurmountable. But at Conservation Northwest, we like to take on big challenges, employing strategy and collaboration to create a better future for people and wildlife.  

Sometimes this means thinking long-range and acting big, like our decade-long effort successfully reintroducing fishers to the Olympics and Cascades, or our campaign to get Washington state to build more than a dozen wildlife crossings on I-90 near Snoqualmie Pass. Sometimes it means working quickly on a small scale, like this summer’s work removing fencing in the Whiskey Dick Wildlife Area to help sage-grouse, mule deer and pronghorn antelope to move more freely across central Washington’s sagelands.

In all these cases, we get practical and positive results that help fulfill a grand vision for connected and restored wildlands that can support the full array of wildlife native to our region.

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Due to unsustainable logging, overgrazing, culverts, roadbuilding, increasing development and other alterations, many fragile wild ecosystems have become seriously fragmented and degraded. But we are successfully working to reconnect key wildlife corridors and restore critical habitats and watersheds.

In the face of climate change, our wildlands face increasing stress from rising temperatures and wildfires, but we can improve their resilience and give wildlife opportunities to adapt.  

Despite a rapidly growing population in Washington state, we are restoring wildlife and wildlands, so that a Northwest region full of towering old-growth forests, vibrant sagelands, and clean, cold rivers can be our future, not just our past.

At the same time, in our deeply polarized society, we see ways for conservation to help bring neighbors and communities together, like what’s happened in the Okanogan Valley with our Safe Passage 97 project, or in wolf territory through our Range Rider Pilot Project, which just completed its 10th year.

Nature conservation doesn’t always have to be us vs. them.

We continue to find ways to collaborate with farmers, ranchers, hikers, environmental activists, hunters, anglers, recreationists, Indigenous tribes and First Nations, policymakers, elected officials and many others, finding hope in the way Washingtonians of all stripes and walks of life appreciate and value our incredible natural heritage.

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Just look at how the Northwest has changed over 30 years. Old-growth is now protected in our national forests. Wildlife bridges have been built on I-90 and plans for more crossings spread throughout the state. Some of our most cherished crown jewels have been permanently protected: Blanchard Mountain near Bellingham and home to the Oyster Dome, the Methow Headwaters and the Loomis State Forest.

We continue to work with the U.S. Forest Service and Washington DNR to transform the way our public lands are managed, from a log-first mindset to one that balances ecological needs so that more acres can return to historic wild-forest conditions that provides habitat and mitigates climate change.

Wolves and fishers are back in Washington. Wolverines are expanding their range and have now even returned to Mount Rainier National Park. We continue to fight for marbled murrelets, Canada lynx, spotted owls, grizzly bears, big horn sheep, pygmy rabbits and sage-grouse so that they can have a future here.

You have done all this through your support, helping us create a Northwest where wild ecosystems have the chance to thrive in their fullest, and where we as humans learn to better coexist with our wild friends; from the Washington Coast to the British Columbia Rockies.

Rest assured, whether it’s fighting to hold B.C. mines accountable for the safety of transboundary rivers, seeking to re-interpret the state constitution for the benefit of state public lands, lobbying for new wildlife crossings on Highway 97 and beyond, or working to halt the proposed Chehalis Dam, we have big plans for 2021. With your support, we will turn these plans into action.

We hope you’ll make a year-end gift today to help us fulfill our promise and vision for a wild and wonderful Northwest.

 

With gratitude,

 

 

 

Matthew Brouwer
Director of Development