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Engaging New Conservation Voices
For decades conservationists have loudly and consistently advocated for
protecting our environment. However, as the threats to
our wild forests continue to mount, additional strategies are needed to keep them
safe. The messenger is often as important as the message.
WWC works closely with non- traditional allies like
backcountry horsemen, sportsmen, tribes, religious leaders and local businesses
to broaden the community of conservation supporters so we can advocate more effectively for our wild
lands and waters.
Through building strong relationships with targeted
communities, WWC has been able to generate unprecedented support from more than
150 religious leaders throughout Washington State for protecting
wilderness and roadless forests. Our quarterly newsletter,
the Washington Wilderness Defender, includes a Guest Voices feature that highlights new conservation voices. Past
contributors have included Mike Beagle of the Backcountry Hunters &
Anglers, evangelical religious leader Peter Illyn and prominent scientist
Gordon Orians.
Building Non-Traditional Alliances
WWC also works to develop strong and lasting relationships
with diverse communities working on public lands protection throughout
Washington State. We brought together a coalition of conservation
groups and the Backcountry
Horsemen of Washington to work together for the first time to address
common ground issues affecting our national forest lands. We
successfully worked with mountain bikers,
disabled citizens and local rural business owners to craft a diverse
message of
support for the Wild Sky Wilderness proposal. Relationships initially
built around one issue strengthen and grow as we move on to others.
Success Stories
The Voice of a Christian Environmental EvangelistWWC’s Washington Wilderness
Defender presented a Guest Voices column by Peter Illyn, Executive
Director
of Restoring Eden, a Christian ministry in Vancouver WA. The article
began with
provocative announcement, “I’m a Christian environmental evangelist.”
Illyn wrote passionately about how he travels the country preaching in
colleges and churches about the goodness of nature and our sacred duty
to love,
serve and protect God’s creation. That article generated a number of
positive
comments and interest from WWC members and supporters pleased that
such voices for wilderness exist.
Disabled Citizens Weigh in on Wilderness
WWC led efforts to reach out to the Washington Coalition
for Citizens with Disabilities to ensure their voice was heard as
Congress
considered the Wild Sky Wilderness proposal. Opponents of the
wilderness
asserted that disabled forest users would be discriminated against if
the area
was designated as wilderness. WWC reached out to the disabled community
to provide information and education. As a result of these efforts, in
2001, the Washington Coalition of Citizens with Disabilities wrote the
first of three letters to Congress endorsing the Wild Sky proposal
calling the disabled access issue a “red herring.” They wrote, "We
believe that sensitive, publicly-owned forests like the Skykomish Wild
Country deserve protection,
regardless of ease or difficulty of human access to their interior. The
letter
referenced a 1992 report by the National Council on Disability which
found that
"[a] significant majority of persons with disabilities surveyed very
much
enjoy the [National Wilderness Preservation System] and 76 percent do
not
believe that the restrictions on mechanized use stated in the
Wilderness Act
diminish their ability to enjoy wilderness."
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