AWR Spotlight: Ten Years of AWR

May 1999

Bioregion Spotlight: Ten Years of AWR

This overview of the past ten years of Alliance for the Wild Rockies is both a retrospective view, as well as a celebration of ten years of conservation action. As a measure of our worth, think of what things might be like for our environment in the Northern Rockies if AWR had not been. Without a doubt there would be a lot less wild country in the Wild Rockies. We played a direct role in defeating proposals that would have released millions of acres of roadless lands to roading and clearcutting. Most of these lands remain roadless and wild to this day. Without the AWR network, many species of fish and wildlife would be worse off and headed closer towards extinction. The very vocabulary of both conservationists and land management agencies would be different.

Consider the situation when AWR formed in November of 1988. Our region was locked in the throes of the state-by-state wilderness bill approach. We take it for granted now that the Wild Rockies is a bioregion. In 1988 this was far from the case. At that time, wilderness was primarily viewed for its benefit to recreation and scenery. Oftentimes, this meant the high alpine country above treeline. Indeed, much of the area formally proposed for wilderness by members of congress was "rocks and ice" wilderness. Mid and low-elevation forests were considered property of the timber industry.

After the spotted owl battles, the Northern Rockies became the major target of the timber industry. The last great expanses of uncut forests were here and the Northern Rockies were desperately in need of help.

We made it part of our mission from the start to do two fundamental things:

Move away from designating isolated islands of land protection to comprehensive ecosystem protection that goes beyond borders
Elevate awareness of the Wild Rockies to national significance and build a national campaign to protect this great region

It's never been easy. For example, on one of our earlier trips to Washington, D.C., we were told by a representative of a national conservation organization not to use the word ecosystem. We were told that nobody in Congress would understand the word and we would get nowhere. But we stuck to our guns and just a short time later "ecosystem management" became the buzz words of public land management nationwide.

For a complete printed version of AWR's Ten Year Report, please send us your name and address and specify that you would like to receive this report.

Alliance for the Wild Rockies
PO Box 8731 • Missoula, Montana • 59807
Phone: 406-721-5420 • Fax: 406-721-9917
E-mail: awr@wildrockies.org

Content Copyright 1999 Alliance for the Wild Rockies, unless otherwise noted.

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