Conservation Northwest

15 years of Northwest Ecosystem Alliance NWEA Timeline 1998, sues the federal government to follow the Northwest Forest Plan and protect old-growth wildlife 1999, launches Loomis Forest Fund Campaign, raising $16.7 million dollars in less than a year to protect 25,000 acres of critical lynx habitat in the Loomis Forest 1999, with others files the Pelly Petition, calling on Canada to pass endangered species legislation 1999, petitions to list the western sage grouse of the Washington shrub-steppe ecosystem 1999, Judge William Dwyer rules in favor of NWEA and others saying the federal government failed to protect wildlife on national forests as required in the Northwest Forest Plan 1999, celebrates 10th anniversary with first annual Jammin' for Salmon event 2000, inititates The Cascades Conservation Partnership to purchase and protect private "checkerboard" forest lands connecting the Alpine Lakes Wilderness with Mount Rainier 2000, Canada lynx listed as threatened across its lower 48-state range 2000, NWEA helps promote a bill that would end old-growth logging in the Pacific Northwest 2000, Washington legislature passes a bill introduced by citizen activists to protect Lake Whatcom with a Lake Whatcom forest land management plan 2000, launches initiative to protect state lands on Blanchard Mountain near Bellingham 2000, organizes the first Washington State Trust Lands Conference 2000, in partnership with the state, implements the Rare Carnivore Remote Camera Project to document the presence of carnivores in the North Cascades 2001, thanks to NWEA, Canada's Snowy Mountain Provincial Park, just north of the Loomis Forest, is formally protected 2001, helps lauch the Northwest OldGrowth Campaign continued page 16 14 me write an article on Congressman John Miller's hijacking of the term "Cascadia." So, being a professional journalist, I dutifully gathered five facts, three quotes, penned a few biting paragraphs, threw in a satirical comic strip, and declared "print it!" to my staff of one. Two weeks later the Congressman's office called. He wanted to meet to discuss my opposition to Cascadia. Did it matter that I didn't know a damned thing about it? Anyway, I'd like to imagine I wasted just enough of the Congressman's time to keep him from laying waste to yet another 25 acres or so of wild land he would have razed whilst we were having breakfast discussing Cascadia. Jeez, it was only 1993. But "those were the days" when sweet Lillian Ford managed the office, Evan Frost did the conservation biology, and a German intern named Holger Sandman wrote English better than the rest of us combined. I remember the wormwood smell of the Herald Building's third floor, the wafting syrupy industrial smell of the GP plant next door, the dull throbbing of mainstream journalism below, and the feel of a clandestine operation above, a ragtag army studying our spread of Mylar maps, perched on the edge of reclaiming some vast wild territory— and indeed we were. British Columbian for the Greater Ecosystem Candace Batycki lives in Nelson, BC, where she is BC Endangered Forests Program director for ForestEthics and serves on the board of the local community radio station. A born and bred British Columbian, I go back with NWEA to the days of Greater Ecosystems. In fact I live in one: my home bioregion is the Columbia Mountains Greater Ecosystem. Made up of three ranges (the Monashees, Selkirks, and Purcells) the Columbia Mountains start in the inland temperate rainforest of British Columbia and stretch down into Washington, Idaho, and Montana. The Columbia is a land of long, deep, cold lakes and diverse mountain forests of cedar and hemlock, pine and larch, spruce and fir. We've got two international grizzly bear recovery zones and a goodly portion of the world's only mountain caribou. And for 15 years NWEA has been there for this region, when most other folks couldn't see past the west side/BC coast. It's easy to forget that only a dozen years ago most conservationists were unfamiliar with the now-gospel ideas of conservation biology, including how to design a buffered and interconnected reserve system. In 1992 GEA hired conservation biologist Evan Frost to design such a system for the Columbias, and me to help gather the necessary data on the BC side and promote the project and its underlying concepts in BC. This was also pre-GIS (gasps from the audience!). We coordinated volunteers to laboriously hand-color dozens and dozens of forest cover maps so we could see easily where the old-growth still was. Evan and I spent many months hauling enormous map rolls around, talking up the approach with scientists, activists, media, government, and volunteers. And I made a secret list of places to visit, as green and blue pencil crayons revealed remote valleys yet untouched by development. Evan and I had a few good field days, as well as some disappointments. I recall driving on what the maps showed as a road that ended on the edge of the International Selkirk Grizzly Bear Recovery Zone. But the damn road kept going and going. We climbed up onto a good view site and shared a few tears at this incursion into what we had hoped was a big expanse of unroaded wilderness. Six months into our project the BC government declared a massive land-use planning exercise for most of our study region. Although flawed due to its Northwest Ecosystem Alliance www.ecosystem.org

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