Washington Wild

Wildland advocacy - in 2023, wa Wild built a coalition of more than 140 diverse stakeholders and generated nearly 300 public comments from our supporters alone to help lead the grassroots effort to designate the cascade, green & napeequa rivers as the first-ever outstanding resource waters (orw) in Washington state by the Washington department of ecology. Orw designation will provide meaningful protection for these rivers by prohibiting any future degradation of water quality. Additionally, wa Wild played a key role in gaining approval for the protection of more than 2,000 acres of state forest lands through the trust land transfer program by the governor, wa department of natural resrources and the state legislature.

Outreach & education - in 2023, wa Wild continued to educate and mobilize Washington residents around wildlands and waters issues. We held 27 community engagement & outreach events with 1,800 event attendees. Wa Wild generated 15 action alerts resulting in more than 3,000 messages to decision makers and coordinated 12 sign-on letters with more than 600 signatories to support salmon recovery, legislative protections on the olympic peninsula, trust land transfer and Washington's first ever outstanding resource designations. In partnership with this is indian country, wa Wild launched the indigenous climate project featuring a website that highlights 25 interviews with pacific northwest tribal leaders sharing oral histories and technical ecological knowledge (tek) about the impacts and innovative solutions indigenous communities are developing to address it, presented in a broadcast documentary format.

Wildlands defense - in 2023, wa Wild led statewide efforts to oppose threats to wildlands and waters from mining, unsustainable old-growth logging, new dam construction, and other development. In january, we saw the old growth forest protections under the roadless rule restored by the biden administration, after wa Wild led efforts in Washington state in support of these protections. In june, wa Wild coordinated a letter signed by 28 organizations and generated 106 grassroots comments to defend the alpine lakes wilderness against potential impacts from proposed dam construction.