2016-2017 Accomplishments

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Here’s a snapshot of our accomplishments from the 2016-2017 fiscal year.

Protecting Special Places

  • Celebrated the expansion of the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument in January and dug in with our coalition partners to defend the monument in court from attacks by the logging industry and Trump administration.
  • Created a Crater Lake Wilderness campaign video and, with our coalition partners, delivered over 37,000 petitions supporting protections to Oregon’s congressional delegation.
  • Helped launch a formal process with Oregon State Parks to protect three new State Scenic Waterways including the South Umpqua, North Santiam, and Nehalem.
  • Worked with allies to pass legislation in Salem protecting all essential salmon rivers in Oregon from suction dredge mining.
  • Promoted additional protections for the Ochoco Mountains during the Solar Eclipse frenzy while also rallying local support with a newly launched public lands advocacy group in Crook County.

Defending and Restoring Oregon’s Forests and Waters

  • Played a key role in a chorus of opposition that prevented the privatization of the Elliott State Forest and ultimately led to the decoupling of the Elliott from requirements to raise money for the Common School Fund.
  • Held “Rally for Water and Wildlife” in Salem, partnering with statewide and rural groups to stand against clearcutting and aerial spray.
  • Continued the drive to modernize the Oregon Forest Practice Act while presenting to and working with dozens of local groups on the coast, students in the Eugene area, and advocates in the Coast Range. 
  • Convened a new coalition – the Oregon Public Lands Alliance – to help build broad public support for public lands. Through the Alliance, we organized a series of educational forums around the state about the various threats facing public lands.
  • Watchdogged over 240 timber sales and other public lands projects, improving dozens and formally objecting to 17 with particularly egregious impacts.

Helping Native Species Thrive

  • Continued our work as the leading voice for wolf recovery in the state, driving turnout to wolf plan hearings and conducting extensive media and public accountability on ODFW management of wolves.
  • Grew trail-cam program, documenting legal violations, grazing, and wolf movements while contributing photos to research conducted by Oregon State University. 
  • Petitioned ODFW to increase protections for marbled murrelets by categorizing the imperiled seabird as “endangered.”
  • Stopped a bill in the Oregon Legislature that would have allowed weaponized drones to fire bullets at wildlife.

Connecting People to Wild Places

  • Led almost 40 hikes and outings across the state while expanding our outdoor program to include more partner hikes with our friends at Vive NW and Passport Oregon with the goal of getting people of color and underserved communities outdoors.
  • Saw the size and impact of our Wild Ones program grow with extensive grassroots training and action across our Portland, Eugene, and Bend offices. Wild Ones activists played an especially important role in highlighting public lands at Congressional town hall events and pressuring the State Land Board to protect the Elliott State Forest.
  • Grew the Oregon Brewshed® Alliance to nearly 50 breweries and partners in almost every corner of the state, while raising over $15,000 to support forest and waters conservation. 
  • Hosted over a dozen Wild Wednesdays across the state, including new locations in Corvallis and Ashland on topics ranging from fire education to snowshoeing.
  • Hosted our eighth annual Wallowa Wolf Rendezvous allowing visitors to see Oregon’s wolf country firsthand.