Tag Archive for: Wilderness

Saying thank you & farewell to wilderness legend Doug Scott

May 17, 2024-

Doug began his work in wilderness conservation just 4 years after passage of the 1964 Wilderness Act, and in the years since has helped establish and expand America’s wilderness areas and grow the wilderness community.

Doug’s fellow board members and staff shared just a few of the many ways Doug’s leadership and expert knowledge has helped The Trust over the years in this short video.

Doug holds a forestry degree from the University of Michigan, where he did his graduate research on the history and drafting of what became the Wilderness Act of 1964. Doug began his own work for wilderness preservation soon after the Wilderness Act became law. As a volunteer activist while in graduate school, a Washington lobbyist for The Wilderness Society, and northwest representative for the Sierra Club, he was in the forefront of many of the important wilderness preservation campaigns as a strategist and lobbyist, including: The Eastern Wilderness Areas Act (1975), the Endangered American Wilderness Act (1978), the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness (1980), the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (1980) and the California Desert Protection Act (1994) among many other wilderness designation statutes.  In the 1980s, Doug was conservation director and, later, associate executive director of the Sierra Club, and in 1996 he received the club’s highest honor, the John Muir Award.

In addition to the many direct contributions Doug has had growing our national wilderness, he is also one of the leading wilderness historians. He is the author of The Enduring Wilderness: Protecting our Natural Heritage through the Wilderness Act and Our Wilderness: America’s Common Ground.

As much as we hate to lose Doug from our board of directors, we look forward to many more years of friendship with Doug! So it’s not ‘goodbye’ it’s ‘see you soon’.

 

Get more wilderness news delivered to your inbox!

By submitting this form, you are consenting to receive marketing emails from: Wilderness Land Trust. You can revoke your consent to receive emails at any time by using the SafeUnsubscribe® link, found at the bottom of every email. Emails are serviced by Constant Contact

Another gap in protection filled in the Wild Sky Wilderness

May 4, 2024-

The Wilderness Land Trust recently acquired 128 acres within Washington’s Wild Sky Wilderness, building on a years-long effort to unify protection across the landscape.

Looking at a map of the Silver Creek drainage in Washington’s Wild Sky and Henry M. Jackson Wilderness Areas tells a remarkable story of the cumulative impact we are making together in the wild places we love. It tells the story of a spectacular landscape, lush with old-growth forest, home to threatened steelhead trout spawning grounds, with a rich history of mining boom and bust that has left a patchwork of land ownership and protection across the wilderness areas.

As we revise this map we color new parcels in yellow as relationships with landowners deepen and deals to purchase their properties progress, in orange as the Trust acquires properties, and ultimately in green as they are transferred to public ownership and added to the wilderness area. It’s a wonderful sense of accomplishment as one by one we see the blank properties on the map filled in as the threat of their development is removed.

Recently we completed the purchase of the 128-acre Ramble Lode property. It was the Trust’s ninth acquisition within the drainage, and adjoins several already protected properties. With it we have filled another gap in protection in the Wild Sky Wilderness.

 

 

Get more wilderness news delivered to your inbox!

By submitting this form, you are consenting to receive marketing emails from: Wilderness Land Trust. You can revoke your consent to receive emails at any time by using the SafeUnsubscribe® link, found at the bottom of every email. Emails are serviced by Constant Contact

Anchorage Daily News – Conservation groups’ purchase preserves additional land in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest

Alaska Beacon and Anchorage Daily News celebrate the Trust’s addition of 5 acres to Kootznoowoo Wilderness in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest.

April 16, 2024

Read Here

Alaska Public Media – Conservation groups add land to the Kootznoowoo Wilderness

Alaska Public Media celebrates the Trust’s addition of 5 acres to Kootznoowoo Wilderness in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest.

April 18, 2024

Read Here

Denver Gazette – A ‘holy grail’ of conservation

The Denver Gazette celebrates the Trust’s involvement in the landmark Snowmass Falls Ranch conservation project.

April 1, 2024

Read Here

Meet Trust supporter Madeleine Landis

April 5, 2024-

We feel incredibly lucky to have such a wonderful and dedicated community of supporters like Madeleine. Just as wilderness draws people from all walks of life, so does our work to protect it. Enjoy this short video to get to know Madeleine and celebrate your shared love for wild places!

“I pity the world that doesn’t have wilderness, the people that don’t have it to go to. I think our society would be even worse off if we didn’t. You know, not everybody can go, but the people who do go can photograph it and write about it and share it. And I think it helps everybody. That’s my hope and belief.”

The Wilderness Land Trust recently transferred 5 acres on Wheeler Creek to public ownership in Tongass National Forest, adding it to the Kootznoowoo Wilderness. At over 17 million acres, Tongass National Forest is the nation’s largest national forest, with 35% of it designated as wilderness across 19 wilderness areas. 

Get more wilderness news delivered to your inbox!

By submitting this form, you are consenting to receive marketing emails from: Wilderness Land Trust. You can revoke your consent to receive emails at any time by using the SafeUnsubscribe® link, found at the bottom of every email. Emails are serviced by Constant Contact

More wilderness added to Alaska’s Tongass National Forest

April 5, 2024-

The Wilderness Land Trust recently transferred 5 acres on Wheeler Creek to public ownership in Tongass National Forest, adding it to the Kootznoowoo Wilderness. At over 17 million acres, Tongass National Forest is the nation’s largest national forest, with 35% of it designated as wilderness across 19 wilderness areas.

The Tongass is often called “America’s climate forest” for the carbon it traps and stores. It role in mitigating climate change impacts is unparalleled. The Tongass is also sometimes called “America’s salmon forest’ as its waterways produce a quarter of the West Coast salmon catch, supporting both commercial fishing communities and native subsistence fishing. The Wheeler Creek property has abundant pink salmon and is also important king salmon spawning ground. Kootznoowoo, which means ‘fortress of the bears” in the native Lingít, is on Admiralty Island southwest of Juneau. Aptly named, it has the world’s highest concentration of brown bears in the world – an estimated 1,600 bears, with more than 1 bear per square mile on the island.

At only 5 acres, the Wheeler Creek property is only a drop in the vast landscape of the Tongass National Forest. But with direct boat access to the property, the wilderness inholding was likely to be developed with cabins or even a commercial lodge if not protected. Thanks to our partnership with Southeast Alaska Land Trust, there is one fewer such threat in the heart of this critical habitat.

Interestingly, land on and around the Wheeler Creek property is accreting, or accumulating. As glaciers continue to shrink, the land is rising in response to the reduced weight of the glaciers in a process known as isostatic rebound. As it rises, more land is exposed above the high-water line. When our Wheeler Creek property was recently surveyed it had actually grown (by less than an acre) since its last survey. Across the region this is creating new habitat and exciting conservation opportunities.

The Wilderness Land Trust recently transferred 5 acres on Wheeler Creek to public ownership in Tongass National Forest, adding it to the Kootznoowoo Wilderness. At over 17 million acres, Tongass National Forest is the nation’s largest national forest, with 35% of it designated as wilderness across 19 wilderness areas. 

Get more wilderness news delivered to your inbox!

By submitting this form, you are consenting to receive marketing emails from: Wilderness Land Trust. You can revoke your consent to receive emails at any time by using the SafeUnsubscribe® link, found at the bottom of every email. Emails are serviced by Constant Contact

Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness grows near Crested Butte!

March 22, 2024-

Just 8 miles northeast of the town of Crested Butte, the Queen Basin rises to meet the ridgelines and summit of White Rock Mountain. The basin has a rich mining history, and remnants can still be found scattered throughout it. In 2022 the Trust acquired the 10-acre Copper Glance Lode property, the last private inholding remaining in the basin. Recently we transferred it to public ownership to be added to the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness.

Throughout much of Colorado’s high country, including deep in what today is designated wilderness, traces of mining history can be found, from mine shafts still framed in timbers to bits of rusted machinery and bean cans. The majority of these silver, gold, and copper mines were small-scale, and the landscapes around them have recovered quickly, wiping away most traces of their camps and wagon trails. These small operations were certainly much different than the kinds of mega-mines we see today, removing entire mountain tops and reshaping vast landscapes to access ore. But they still serve as a reminder of what could have been. Had the boom not turned to bust so quickly, or had the lasting protections of designated wilderness not been established 60 years ago, the basins and ridges of Colorado’s high country might have looked much different today, including those surrounding the Copper Glance Lode property.

Data from the Resilient Landscapes Mapping Tool

Our thinking on what these landscapes provide has also evolved. No longer are they valued primarily for the profit lying beneath their surface, but for their beauty, their recreational opportunities, and the role their ecosystems play in sustaining life. The 10-acre Copper Glance Lode property rates high for climate resilience, habitat connectivity, and landscape diversity, which means that not only does it play an important role in maintaining biodiversity and clean air and water today, but it will continue to as the climate changes.

Get more wilderness news delivered to your inbox!

By submitting this form, you are consenting to receive marketing emails from: Wilderness Land Trust. You can revoke your consent to receive emails at any time by using the SafeUnsubscribe® link, found at the bottom of every email. Emails are serviced by Constant Contact

New protections for Washington and California’s wild places

February 23, 2024-

Lands added to Henry M. Jackson Wilderness & Lassen National Forest

This week we are celebrating successful transfers of properties in California and Washington to public ownership! Both projects protect habitat important for maintaining biodiversity and improve connectivity across the landscape.

In northern California’s Lassen National Forest, 35 acres have been protected in an area proposed for future wilderness designation. The property provides an important connection between the proposed wilderness and Hat Creek, a trout fishery that Cal Trout and the Pit River Tribes have been working to restore. With good road access, the property was at high risk of development in the popular area for cabins and second homes just outside Lassen National Park. With the property’s addition to public lands, the road can be closed, adding to the roadless area eligible for wilderness designation.

 

 

 

The 15-acre West Seattle Lode property has been added to Washington’s Henry M. Jackson Wilderness. The property was our first acquisition in the wilderness area in 2022, which adjoins the Wild Sky Wilderness. This rugged, glaciated landscape is home to the endangered Northern Spotted Owl, Cascade red fox, pika, wolverines, and Marbled Murrelet, a seabird that nests in old-growth forests and alpine slopes. The property is on a steep slope that overlooks the Monte Cristo ghost town, the site of a gold and silver mining boom lasting from 1895-1912, and a popular hiking destination.

The Hat Creek and West Seattle Lode projects are great examples of how protecting small properties can have positive impacts that reach well beyond their boundaries.

 

Get more wilderness news delivered to your inbox!

By submitting this form, you are consenting to receive marketing emails from: Wilderness Land Trust. You can revoke your consent to receive emails at any time by using the SafeUnsubscribe® link, found at the bottom of every email. Emails are serviced by Constant Contact

650-acre Snowmass Falls Ranch protected in landmark conservation deal

February 9, 2024-

The Wilderness Land Trust is partnering with Pitkin County in a landmark conservation deal to protect the 650-acre Snowmass Falls Ranch just outside of Snowmass Village conserving two miles of valley floor filled with aspen meadows, beaver ponds, trout streams, and public trails.

Located at the foot of the Elk Range, the majority of the property lies within the boundaries of the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness. The ranch is home to diverse wilderness values: open meadows, aspen groves, spruce forest, wetlands, and riparian shrublands create a mosaic of habitat types that support a wide range of flora and fauna. It provides summer range for elk, bear, moose, mule deer, and mountain lion and hosts an active beaver complex and many bird species. A popular public trail runs through the ranch, serving as an important access point for hikers to the wilderness area. In addition to its ecological and recreation value, the ranch also holds the most senior water rights to Snowmass Creek, a significant source of water for the valley below.

This week Pitkin County purchased the property for $34 M using Open Space Program funds. The ultimate goal is to transfer the majority of the property to public ownership as National Forest to be added to the Maroon-Bells Snowmass Wilderness. This will also allow Pitkin County to recoup most of the purchase price to reinvest in other conservation and community projects. In the interest of future management and stewardship, it is possible that a small portion including existing cabins will end up in private ownership, ideally with a conservation easement. As a project partner, the Trust’s primary roles are to help determine these boundaries with the goal of maximizing the portion to become Wilderness, and to help secure LWCF funding for the ultimate transfer to public ownership.

Within the high-end real estate market of Aspen and surrounding Pitkin County communities, properties of this size are rare and highly sought after. Currently the property is largely undeveloped, with a small cluster of primitive cabins and a public trailhead on its east side, leaving the majority of it intact and connected habitat. This conservation project is only possible today because of the caring stewardship of the property by the private owners over the last 80 years—they are a wonderful example of how conservation values can be protected under private ownership. But the likelihood of another conservation-minded buyer stepping forward when the property was listed for sale was slim, and if not protected it could have been subdivided into up to six lots and developed.

Both The Wilderness Land Trust and Pitkin County have been pursuing a conservation solution for the property for many years, and the once in a generation opportunity to protect it has finally come to fruition.