Our featured Local Resource for this edition of Get to Know a Resource is Conservation Northwest. Barbara Christensen, Web 2.0 Organizer for Conservation Northwest took the time to fill out our questionnaire so you could get a chance to learn their story.
For those new to Whatcom, give us a thirty second elevator speech about your organization.
Conservation Northwest is the region's premier wildlife and wild lands preservation group. We are science-based and focus on working with local communities to find on-the-ground solutions that protect and connect wild places from the BC Rockies to the Washington coast, vital to a healthy future for us, our children, and wildlife.
As you can tell from our website, we love data. Share with us three interesting data points that highlight your work.
- More than 70% of our funding comes from individuals in nearly 5,000 families across the Pacific Northwest
- By Spring 2010, we will have introduced nearly 100 fisher to the Olympic Peninsula. Fisher where hunted to local extinction in Washington more than seven decades ago.
- We are working to protect more than 300,000 acres of wilderness in the vital Columbia Highlands where the Cascades meet the Rockies. The plan to protect this vital land also includes lands for sustainable, local forestry and restoration to old growth conditions.
Though we love data, we still have heart. Tell us about an experience that has made your work worthwhile.
It was a pure joy to watch the faces of school kids that joined us and the federal and state biologists as we released Pacific Fisher back into the wilds of Olympic National Park. They (and we) were thrilled that a vital part of the Olympic ecosystem was returned to its rightful place in the wild! We thought it was so cool, we even made a slideshow :)
Community health issues cross a number of sectors and agencies. Tell us about your organizations role in the complex web of community health.
Well, one could argue that all community health begins with clean air and water, so we like to think we are doing our part for the future generations by creating healthy landscapes and buffering climate change!
Dream big here, if your organization received a sizable grant, what would you do with it?
A big grant would give us the capacity to give each and every person who is passionate about the wild and wildlife of the Northwest the chance to hear a wolf in the wild, see a grizzly from across a valley in the North Cascades, hike along a crystal clear stream in an old growth forest, and leave to their grandchildren a truly wonderous natural legacy like no place else in the world. We would do this by giving more people the opportunity to influence their leaders for strong environmental legislation, by ensuring those same leaders take care of the public lands that belong to all of us, and by connecting as many people as possible with the lands we are trying to connect and protect.
Give us your pitch! What are ways for a person to get involved with your organization?
We also need volunteers to run the remote camera project; intern in our office on projects ranging from science to outreach to GIS; help us at the big events that raise awareness and money for our vital work; head out into the lands we work to protect to take photos or lead hikes; and finally, spread the word via social media like
Facebook!
Any final words for our readers?
Why you? Dear reader... You care about the place you leave to your children and the legacy of wild and scenic places that make up the region you love. You are someone who knows that the health of the land and the health of the people are inextricably linked.
Why Conservation Northwest?
- Proven and successful: For 20 years, we've protected and connected hundreds of thousands of acres in Washington and BC
- Smart and strategic: We collaborate with local communities, build science-based solutions, and lead innovative partnerships like The Cascades Conservation Partnership, The Loomis Forest Fund, and the Mountain Caribou Project.
Together, we can succeed!
Now that you've learned a little about Conservation Northwest head on over to their
Local Resource Listing for information on how you can get involved.
If you would like to have your organization featured on in a Get to Know a Resource article, fill out our short Questionnaire!
