Our Approach
We defend America’s public lands so they remain open, accessible, and protected for everyone, while sustaining the fundamental ecological systems that all life depends on.
From national parks to wildlife refuges and state-managed access sites, public lands are part of our shared heritage and collective identity. These places provide habitat, recreation, and a sense of belonging. Today, powerful interests are working to seize, privatize, or weaken protections for these lands. Our mission is to stop these threats, uphold bedrock environmental laws, and ensure that public lands remain public, healthy, and safeguarded for future generations.
Current Focus
Work We’re Doing to Achieve Public Land Defense Goals
Public Land Protection
Conservation Northwest’s public lands work protects national forests, wildlife refuges, and other shared landscapes from efforts to privatize, transfer, or weaken their ecological safeguards.
By monitoring and responding to threats that prioritize private ownership or short term extraction over long term ecosystem health, we engage through collaboration, public outreach, and legal action when needed. Staff work closely with partners to maintain strong, science based management of forests, watersheds, and habitat across the Northwest, ensuring these lands remain intact, connected, and accessible to the public.
Resilient Public Lands
Alongside this defensive work, the program advances a proactive vision for resilient, well managed public lands. This includes supporting forest restoration that improves habitat and reduces wildfire risk, strengthening wildlife corridors, and ensuring recreational access is balanced with ecological integrity.
The program also champions modernized management of Washington’s state trust lands, following a landmark court decision affirming that the Department of Natural Resources can prioritize ecological and community benefits alongside revenue. Together, these efforts safeguard the future of the Northwest’s public lands as healthy, connected landscapes that serve wildlife, communities, and future generations.
Impact & Results
A History of Public Land Defense
Public lands across the Northwest have long faced pressure from privatization, extraction, and weakened conservation safeguards. Through advocacy, legal action, and community partnerships, we work to keep these shared landscapes protected, connected, and accessible for future generations.
Defending Northwest Forests & Watersheds
Protecting Public Resources & Watersheds
Advocating for Public Lands & Communities
Defending Northwest Forests & Watersheds
Work in forest habitat is anchored in the Northwest Forest Plan and related federal and state planning processes that shape how mature forests, old growth, and critical wildlife habitat are managed across Washington. Engagement focuses on ensuring these plans protect ecological integrity and maintain habitat connectivity.
Protecting Public Resources & Watersheds
Extraction and divestment are constant, recurring pressures against the public resources that are held in public trust for the benefit of all. In addition to recreational opportunities, revenue generation, and extractive resources, our public lands provide cold, clean water, carbon sequestration, and core ecological benefits that support quality of life for all people.
Advocating for Public Lands & Communities
Defending public lands requires coordinated advocacy, legal engagement, and community partnership, ensuring that decisions reflect broad public values, uphold ecological stewardship, and keep these shared landscapes accessible and intact for future generations.
Impact & Results
Our Key Accomplishments for Public Land Defense
From protecting critical landscapes to advancing collaborative forest restoration, these efforts deliver lasting benefits for wildlife, habitat connectivity, and climate resilience.
Forest Conservation Advocacy
Protecting Washington Forests at Scale
Protected hundreds of thousands of acres of Washington forests through long term advocacy and coalition leadership- Over decades, CNW has played a central role in safeguarding large swaths of Washington’s forests from unsustainable logging and development. This includes early ancient forest campaigns and ongoing efforts to secure conservation designations, improve forest management, and maintain intact habitat across the Cascades and beyond.
State Trust Lands Reform
Washington Supreme Court Public Lands Ruling
Secured a landmark Washington Supreme Court ruling affirming that state trust lands can be managed for public benefit, not just revenue- In Conservation Northwest v. Commissioner of Public Lands, the Washington Supreme Court unanimously affirmed that DNR has the authority and constitutional mandate to manage state forestlands for “all the people” of Washington, not solely for timber revenue. This ruling modernized the legal framework for state lands and opened the door to management that prioritizes ecological health, climate resilience, recreation, and community benefit.
Latest Public Lands Defense News
A Summer of Partnership on Our Public Lands
White House Ignites Fire Under Forest Service and Torches our National Forests
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