Photo: Steven Gnam When writer Paula MacKay decided to join Wildlands friends on a float trip down the Upper Missouri River, she stepped out of her comfort zone and into the waterway traveled by Lewis and Clark more than 200 years ago. In Part II of her travel essay, she grapples with the humility of surrendering to the wind.
We are often so overwhelmed, so paralyzed by the scale and complexities of Mother Nature’s woes that we don’t know how or where to start. In the Eastern Wildway, the answer is deceptively simple: Half Earth. Photo: William Gladish
Recently, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released a draft recovery plan for Mexican gray wolves. Wildlands Network has been preparing for this moment for a very long time. We expected to be disappointed by many of the components of the recovery plan, as well as its overall vision. Unfortunately, USFWS met our expectations. Photo: Juan Carlos Bravo
OUR VISION IS SIMPLE: we live for the day when Grizzly Bears in Chihuahua have an unbroken connection to Grizzlies in Alaska; when Gray Wolf populations are continuous from Mexico to Labrador; when vast unbroken forests and flowing plains again thrive and support pre-Columbian populations of plants and animals; when humans dwell with respect, harmony, and affection for the land; when we come to live no longer as strangers and aliens on this continent.
TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO, as a fledgling lawyer in Seattle, I cut my conservation teeth on the great timber wars of the Pacific Northwest—strategizing around how a small bird (the northern spotted owl) could be used as a surrogate to save entire ecosystems. This issue seemed like a big deal at the time, and of course it was in many ways. But while I was busy trying to save spotted owls, the founders of The Wildlands Project, now Wildlands Network, were envisioning even bigger things.
When writer Paula MacKay decided to join Wildlands friends on a float trip down the Upper Missouri River, she stepped out of her comfort zone and into the waterway traveled by Lewis and Clark more than 200 years ago. In Part I of her travel essay, she sets the stage for her paddle through history.
In an op-ed for the The Washington Daily News, Wildlands Network’s Ron Sutherland explores the relatively trivial cost of trying to save red wolves—an invaluable and endangered species. Photo: Becky Bartell, USFWS
Twenty-five years.
Half the lifespan of a chimpanzee, or a scarlet macaw lighting the tropical sky. Twice the age of an old wild cougar, who somehow eluded highways and guns. A few blinks of the eye for a bowhead whale, her baleen sifting the Beaufort across two centuries or more. And the silver anniversary of couples of our own kind, honoring the hard-earned stories they’ve created along the way.
Juan Carlos Bravo, director of Wildlands Network’s Mexico Program, gave this interview with TRTWorld, focusing on jaguar populations in the U.S. and Mexico and the effect of Trump’s border wall on those populations. Photo: Northern Jaguar Project/Naturalia
El año pasado, les hicimos saber que el estado de protección de la reserva Ajos-Bavispe se encontraba en un limbo burocrático desde hace muchos años. El lunes 22 de mayo la Secretaría del Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (SEMARNAT) finalmente la re-categorizó, protegiendo así a la extraordinaria biodiversidad de está región de importancia central para la protección de jaguares, osos negros, lobos mexicanos, cotorras serranas occidentales y muchas otras especies prioritarias para la conservación. Foto: Mario Cirett
This past fall, America got a little less wild when the US Fish and Wildlife Service announced their decision to significantly reduce the wild red wolf population, which only exists in northeastern North Carolina. On Tuesday, the agency gave notice the start of a 60-day public comment period concerning their ill-advised proposal to pull back hard on the wild population of wolves in North Carolina. Now is our chance to tell the USFWS their plan will almost certainly condemn the species to extinction in the wild. Photo: Becky Bartell, USFWS
Last year, we let you know the protected status of the Ajos-Bavispe reserve in the borderlands of Sonora had been in bureaucratic limbo for several years. On Monday, May 22, the Mexican government finally recategorized it, protecting the unique biodiversity of this core area for the protection of jaguars, black bears, Mexican wolves, thick-billed parrots and many other species listed in one or both countries along the border. Photo: Mario Cirett
Last Wednesday, May 17, Wildlands Network hosted two empowering events: the Salt Lake City premiere of the film Born to Rewild and the 2017 Western Wildway Annual Meeting. The near-tangible wonder and inspiration in the rooms after both events exemplify the spirit and opportunity within Wildlands Network’s critical conservation efforts. Photo: Karsten Heuer
On April 26, President Trump signed an executive order instructing Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke to review all national monuments created since Jan. 1, 1996 and spanning at least 100,000 acres. This radical executive order, which allows for a sweeping review of 27 protected places, is an attack on all public lands. Now is the time to raise our voices and take action to protect these imperiled places and the wildlife relying on them for their existence. Photo: Bob Wick, Bureau of Land Mangagement
On May 3, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a budget to fund the federal government through the end of September 2017. The budget now moves to the Senate, with a looming deadline of Friday, May 5 at midnight for a vote. Some news outlets and Democrats have publically proclaimed this budget doesn’t include money for a border wall. They are wrong. Photo: Wildlands Network