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Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness

Dear Friends,

Your unwavering support and advocacy for Wilderness helps keep our Wilderness System wild and Wilderness Watch at the forefront of the fight to protect it. Thank you!

Wilderness is being protected because of you:

  • We convinced the Forest Service (FS) to keep cows out of two areas in the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness in Montana.
  • We beat back a FS plan to torch a huge part of the Palisades Wilderness Study Area in Wyoming.
  • We persuaded the Air Force to drop its plan to greatly expand F-16 overflights plus associated discharge of flares and chaff over America’s first Wilderness—the Gila—and seven other Wildernesses in New Mexico.
  • We advanced our lawsuits to stop bear baiting in Wildernesses in Idaho and to reverse the Trump administration’s secretive approval of e-bikes on non-motorized trails, including potential wilderness, in our national parks.

Please make a special donation today for our ongoing work on these and the many other challenges facing Wilderness!

Unfortunately, the Biden administration hasn’t distanced itself from the Trump administration on some key Wilderness issues. One of the most glaring examples is its defense in court of the Trump administration’s illegal attempts to build a road through the world-renowned Izembek National Wildlife Refuge and Wilderness in Alaska. Biden’s interior department is also processing a request from the State of Alaska to conduct road-related survey work in Izembek as soon as this month. We’re prepared to defend Izembek and our court victories at all costs.

We’re also pushing the new administration and Congress to undo the Trump administration’s policies that:

  • Opened the Arctic Refuge to oil and gas development.
  • Allowed baiting, aerial gunning, and killing mother bears and wolves in their dens in national preserves in Alaska.
  • Advanced mining projects that would irreparably damage two of the largest Wildernesses east of the Mississippi—the Okefenokee in Georgia and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in Minnesota.

We’re also ready to challenge the FS should it approve the State of Montana’s massive proposal to poison 70 miles of rivers and streams and three lakes in the Scapegoat Wilderness, part of the famed Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex. The plan includes intensive use of helicopters and other generally banned motorized equipment.

And, we’re pushing back against Idaho’s and Montana’s recently passed laws that allow the slaughter of the vast majority of wolves in each state. We’ve submitted a petition asking the FS to protect wolves in Wildernesses in both states from the new hunting and trapping rules, and we’ve put Montana on notice of our intent to sue over its barbaric wolf-killing laws.

Our work goes beyond beating back harmful proposals:

  • Our national campaign to remove destructive livestock grazing throughout the National Wilderness Preservation System is advancing.
  • We recently sent letters to the new administration and members of Congress urging them to enact new policies and legislation that will strengthen protections for Wilderness.

Wilderness Watch is a member-driven organization, and more than 90 percent of our funding comes from individuals like you. Please be as generous as you can, and donate today to protect Wilderness forever.

For the wild,
George, Kevin, Dana, Brett, and Dawn

Help us protect Wilderness around the country. All first-time donations matched by a generous donor in Alaska!

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Photo: Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness 

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P.O. Box 9175  |  Missoula, MT 59807  |  wildernesswatch.org  |  DONATE

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