About Us

Services

wildlandscpr — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 12:48:29 -0600

Workshops
Wildlands CPR conducts three distinct styles of workshops, though each has certain similar components. We offer inventory/ground-truthing workshops, restoration workshops, and also road prevention strategy workshops. Our workshops are led by people familiar with road-fighting techniques, using active hands-on or field-based methods to teach people to prevent, close, or restore wildland roads. Please call our Missoula office us if you would like information on upcoming workshops or if you'd like to sponser a workshop in your area.

Road Removal Workshop, June 2003

Road Inventory Workshops
The majority of our workshops have focused on training activists to go out on the ground and inventory Forest Service or BLM roads and use this data to advocate effective road closure programs. Activists learn to use stereoscopes and aerial photos to analyze transportation maps for "ghost roads" and then to look for those ghost roads on the land. We discuss methods for petitioning public land agencies to close roads using such tools as Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, agency planning documents, road density standards and mapping techniques.

These workshops include explanations of sample field data sheets, covering everything from the type of closure in place to the potential ecological effects of the road. Data sheets can be modified to include region specific concerns about particular types of wildlife, hydrologic effects of roads, off-road vehicle use, etc.

Inventory workshops also teach about the laws that require agencies to close roads. And they train activists to watchdog agencies to ensure that roads are closed properly, by ripping and reseeding the road rather than simply putting up barriers (a method past inventories has proven ineffective.

"I learned direct evidence of what roads can do to watersheds- rather than just stating that roads are bad, I now have ways of evaluating exact cause and effects."
-Montana restoration workshop participant

Road Restoration Workshops
Developed in Spring 1996, our road restoration workshops focus on specific on-the-ground techniques for effectively removing roads and restoring terrestrial and hydrologic conditions. These workshops are packed with technical information and skills for assessing the ecological problems caused by roads and then understanding appropriate methods for treating these problems.

Road restoration workshops are tailored to the specific audience that is interested in learning about road obliteration, especially hydrologic road closures. For example, a workshop could focus on training heavy equipment operators for road ripping, or it could focus on teaching activists to assess agency proposals for flaws that may lead to worsened, rather than improved ecological conditions.

Wildlands CPR contracts with experts in the field of road restoration to conduct these trainings. They are therefore more expensive than our regular road inventory training workshops, and require longer lead time to ensure that we can find an appropriate location for the workshop and that the experts are able to lead it.

Road Prevention Strategy Workshops
Our strategy workshops were developed in the winter of 1995/96 to deal with certain regional issues that were more focused on road prevention that road removal. It is, after all, easier to prevent a new road then to rip it out after it has been built.

The focus of these strategy workshops is twofold: 1) To develop a regional road-fighting coalition of activists; and 2) To discuss legal, scientific and public participation/outreach strategies that can help prevent the proposed roads. These workshops necessarily involve more group participation than the others because we are brainstorming and developing strategies for specific rod proposals. We depend on the interaction between activists, lawyers, scientists, and others to come up with strategies that are scientifically and legally sound, as well as strategies to increase public opposition to new road developments in wildland and native ecosystems.

Monitoring and Surveying Resources: downloadable inventory forms for your use, click here.

Prices vary depending on location and type of workshop; please call 406-543-9551 or email.

Slide Show Toad
Our slide show, "Why Didn't the Toad Cross the Road?" graphically explains the ecological impacts of roads. We have presented the slide show to hundreds of people from Anchorage to Seattle to Boston.

Our presentation is adaptable to different forums and audiences. However, each presentation covers the following key topics:

Overview of the ecological impacts of roads and motorized recreation
Introduction to laws and regulations limiting roads on public lands
Introduction to road removal and ecological restoration
Success stories: examples of successful road-fighting campaigns
Opportunities for citizen involvement

We encourage interaction, questions and discussion. By planning our presentations in conjunction with local groups, we can address local issues, and plan follow up meetings or workshops. We also have a slide show package available we loan and sell to University professors and activists throughout the country.

Prices: $125 sale; $25 rental (includes brochures and literature)

"The presentation was striking. It provoked great interest among the students."
-William Rodgers, Professor of Law at the University of Washington

Database
Wildlands CPR continues to maintain and update a bibliographic database of over 12,000 citations documenting the physical and ecological effects of roads and off-road vehicles. In the U.S. alone, there are 6 million kilometers of public roads and over 36 million registered off-road vehicles. We compiled this bibliography to help people access relevant scientific literature on erosion, fragmentation, sedimentation, pollution, effects on wildlife, aquatic and hydrologic effects, and various other up-to-date information on the impacts of roads and off-road vehicles. Search the database here.

"WCPR's reference texts...greatly facilitated our literature search efforts to document road impacts on wilderness resources. Such information significantly improves our program to restore to a natural condition over 70 miles of backcountry roads."

- Kim Crumbo, former Wilderness Coordinator, Grand Canyon NP

Website
Our web site features the latest in road and ORV resources, including:

Educational materials
An ORV Information site
Current and archived issues of the Road RIPorter
Current and archived issues of Skid Marks
Information and order forms for The Road Ripper's Handbook and Guides
Bibliographic Database

Staff

wildlandscpr — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 11:02:34 -0600

Sue Gunn, Restoation Campaign Director

Contact Sue

Sue has a PhD in isotope geochemistry and conducted research in igneous petrology for the US Geological Survey in Menlo Park, CA for over a decade. Her doctorate fieldwork was conducted on the Cretaceous granites of southwestern Montana and the research for her MS was in a remote area of Baja, CA. Her undergraduate degree is in Political Science with an emphasis on constitutional law. Sue has an extensive policy background and worked for a decade in Washington DC as the director of Budget and Appropriations and later the director of the the National Parks Program for The Wilderness Society. She moved to Olympia, WA in 2006 to get closer to big wilderness and has worked on water and environmental issues. Sue is currently the Washington state representative for Wildlands CPR and the campaign coordinator for the Washington Watershed Restoration Initiative. Raised in the Chicago area, at one time she worked for the Chicago Daily News as an editorial assistant and for the Second City as an improvisational comedian.

Sarah Peters, Legal Liaison/Staff Attorney (Oregon)

Contact Sarah

Sarah has a JD from the University of Oregon School of Law and a BS in Environmental Science from Indiana University. Sarah graduated from UO Law with certificates in Environmental and Natural Resources Law, Public Interest Law, and Pro Bono and is a member of the State Bars of Colorado and Oregon. While in law school, Sarah worked with the Western Environmental Law Center and the Klamath Siskiyou Wildlands Center on a variety of public lands issues, and worked part-time as a law clerk in the office of public interest attorney Marianne Dugan. Sarah also volunteered with local restoration and conservation groups, and focused her energy on increasing community activism among law students.

Tom Petersen, Development Director

Contact Tom

Tom has an MS in Environmental Studies from the University of Montana and has worked as a fund raiser for not-for-profit environmental groups for 18 years. He has been with Wildlands CPR for 13 years, and was co-founder and Executive Director of a successful community garden program in North Carolina for seven years, creating funding strategies, budgets, and development plans for the organization. Tom is also a Board member of the Wild Rockies Field Institute (WRFI) and sits on the Advisory Board of Orion Magazine's Grassroots Network. In addition to working in the non-profit world, Tom is a published nature writer, and editor of the 2006 anthology on wildland roads, A Road Runs Through It: Reviving Wild Places (Johnson Books, Boulder CO).

Adam Rissien, Montana Off-Road Vehicle Coordinator

Contact Adam

Adam earned his MS in Environmental Studies at the University of Montana with an emphasis on national forest policy, which culminated in a professional paper examining restoration principles, their on-the-ground application and intersection with the Forest Service budgetary process. Prior to this, Adam spent eight years in Montana working and volunteering on numerous environmental issues, including tracking snowmobile trespass in roadless and Wilderness areas, documenting illegal ORV use in the Great Burn Proposed Wilderness Area, and serving as Chair of the Sierra Club's Bitterroot-Mission Group. Before taking the Montana ORV Coordinator position, Adam worked for the Sierra Club in Wyoming as their state lobbyist and Associate Regional Representative working on issues such as national forest planning and impacts from energy development.

Adam Switalski, Science Coordinator

Contact Adam

Adam, our Science Coordinator since June 2002, earned a Masters in Wildlife Ecology from Utah State University, working with John Bissonette, a renowned leader in road mitigation research. Adam’s graduate work quantified the behavioral response of coyotes to wolf reintroduction in Yellowstone National Park. For the last eight years, Adam has coordinated interdisciplinary research projects on road decommissioning and fish, wildlife, and vegetation and coauthored papers in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, Transactions of the American Fisheries Society, and Restoration Ecology. He also has published reviews of the impacts of off-road vehicles and developed Best Management Practices for their management. He is a Faculty Affiliate of the University of Montana’s Environmental Studies Program and sits on the Board of the Montana Chapter of the Society for Conservation Biology.

Bethanie Walder, Executive Director

Contact Bethanie

Bethanie Walder, Executive Director since 1995, has an undergraduate degree in Political Science from Duke University and a Master's in Environmental Studies from the University of Montana. For her Master's degree, she completed an in-depth study of the "forest health crisis" for Hells Canyon Preservation Council (and other activists) to use to challenge forest health timber sales. Prior to working with Wildlands CPR, Bethanie spent a year working on roadless area protection for The Ecology Center in Missoula. She was a founding member of Women's Voices for the Earth, also in Missoula, serving on their steering committee from its inception until July 1997. She has been on the board of the American Lands Alliance since 1997, including several periods serving on the executive committee. Bethanie serves as a faculty affiliate for the Environmental Studies Department at the University of Montana. She also sits on the board of the North Missoula Community Development Corporation, which focuses on affordable housing and promoting livable, thriving neighborhoods within the Missoula community.

Cathrine Walters, Program Associate

Contact Cathrine

Cathrine earned her BS in Natural Resource Management in Wisconsin andworked as a range technician and wildlife technician inWisconsin and Idaho. She eventually landed in Missoula and joinedWildlands CPR's staff in August 2005 as their Program Associate. After ashort hiatus during the summer of 2007 to pursue her other passion, photography,she returned that fall to split her time with Wildlands CPR and shooting.

Board Members

The Board of Directors is a group of individuals dedicated to preserving and recovering wilderness by removing roads. They stay involved in the decision-making process through frequent fax, e-mail and phone communication regarding major issues and allocation of funds. We have one annual weekend meeting per year, plus quarterly phone conferences. Wildlands CPR's Director is responsible for day-to-day decisions, and she frequently consults with individual members of the board on specific issues. Board members can serve up to 2 consecutive 3-year terms, but then must step down for at least a year before rejoining the board.

2010 Board & Staff Meeting, B-Bar Ranch, Emigrant, MT
Front row (from left): Bethanie Walder, Crystal Mario, Susan Jane Brown, Sarah Peters, Sue Gunn
2nd row: Brett Paben, Tom Petersen, Adam Rissien, Adam Switalski
3rd row: Marion Hourdequin, Cathrine Walters, Cara Nelson, Jim Furnish
(not pictured: Rebecca Lloyd & Chris Kassar)

Jim Furnish, President, is a consulting forester in the Washington DC area following a 34-year career with USDA Forest Service. He served as Siuslaw National Forest Supervisor in Corvallis, OR from 1992-1999, and as Deputy Chief of the 192 million acre National Forest System under Mike Dombeck for 2 1/2 years. As Siuslaw Forest Supervisor, he directed a total reformation from a timber-dominated mission to one of conservation biology under the Northwest Forest Plan, with dramatic reductions in timber harvest and road networks. As Deputy Chief, Jim was instrumental in creating the Roadless Area Conservation and Forest Planning regulations, two of the most significant and controversial in recent agency history. Jim joined the board in February 2005.

Chris Kassar, Vice President, is a wildlife biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity where she is working to defend public lands in Arizona, New Mexico and California from off-road vehicle abuse. She joined the Center in 2005 and previously worked for the Friends of the Inyo, surveying routes and conducting research on the impacts of off-road vehicles on the Inyo National Forest. Chris holds an M.S. in Wildlife Biology from Utah State University where she worked in the landscape ecology lab and completed research on the impacts that roads have on wildlife and habitat. Chris joined the Board in spring 2007.

Rebecca Lloyd, Secretary/Treasurer, is a Hydrologist and Project Leader for the Nez Perce Tribe, Idaho. She develops and manages all of the Tribe's restoration work on the Lochsa Drainage, including road decommissioning, culvert replacement, road improvement, riparian restoration, and invasive plant control. Her restoration work began in 1997 when she took a position as a technician working for the Clearwater National Forest's burgeoning road decommissioning program. During that year she also worked for the Nez Perce Tribe, which was beginning to develop its partnership with the Clearwater National Forest. She graduated in 1993 from Washington University in St. Louis with a degree in Environmental Science and International Studies and earned a Masters Degree in Environmental Science/ Water Resources at Indiana University in 1999. Becca joined the Board in February 2006.

Crystal Mario founded and runs Rivanna Natural Designs. After a distinguished career with such high-profile companies as AdobeSystems, Inc. and Xerox Imaging Systems, Crystal was tired of spendingher life in airports and hotel rooms. She started Rivanna NaturalDesigns in 2001 with a simple objective: to provide safe, meaningful,and rewarding employment for recently-arrived refugees and others inour community who need a second start or an opportunity to learn newskills. Rivanna uses sustainably harvested or reclaimed wood andrecycled glass to create the clocks, plaques, pens, and deskaccessories for sale through the company’s online store.

Cara Ritchie Nelson is a David H. Smith Conservation Research Fellow at University of Washington's College of Forest Resources. She received a Bachelor of Science degree from The Evergreen State College, Master of Science degrees in Conservation Biology and in Forestry from the University of Wisconsin, and a Ph.D. in Forest Ecosystem Analysis from the University of Washington. In August 2007, Cara will be moving from the Cascades to the Rockies to join the faculty at University of Montana's College of Forestry and Conservation as Assistant Professor of Restoration Ecology. Cara's research encompasses a variety of studies, organized around the central theme of the effects of fire and other large-scale disturbances on forest vegetation. In addition, Cara is continuing to pursue several long-term studies initiated during her doctoral program. She originally joined the board in November 1995, and rejoined in 2005.

Brett Paben is an attorney with WildLaw, where he asworked since graduating from the University of Oregon School of Law in2000, with his J.D. and a certificate in Environmental and NaturalResources Law. Brett also holds bachelors' degrees in InternationalAffairs and Environmental Studies from the University ofWisconsin-Madison and Wildlife Ecology and Conservation from theUniversity of Florida. Brett works on public lands, endangered speciesand anti-pollution related issues, with a particular focus on National Forests.

Susan Jane Brown is a staff attorney with the Western Environmental Law Center. Her primary focus of litigation is federal public lands forest management, but her practice includes cases involving the Endangered Species Act, National Environmental Policy Act, National Forest Management Act, and other land management statutes. Susan Jane also spent three years as Executive Director of the Gifford Pinchot Task Force, where she created and led a comprehensive, cohesive, and mutually beneficial collaborative strategy among environmentalists, citizens, and public officials focusing on sustainable uses of public forest lands in southwest Washington State. She continues her involvement in collaborative working groups across the Pacific Northwest.

Photos provided by Wildlands CPR staff

What We Do

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Wildlands CPR offers winning, positive solutions to protecting and restoring our public lands.

Workshops
Since our workshop program began in 1995, Wildlands CPR has trained nearly 1,250 activists and agency employees to: 1)monitor and inventory system and non-system roads and motorized routes; 2) prevent new road construction; and 2) understand and promote road removal. We've sponsored workshops in Alabama, Alaska, Alberta (Canada), Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, North Carolina, South Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Washington (we've held multiple workshops in many of these states).

Presentations, Conferences and Research
Wildlands CPR staff members have given hundreds of presentations to thousands of people at conferences and workshops throughout the U.S. In addition, we've raised and distributed nearly $10,000 for original research on road removal.

Litigation
Wildlands CPR has been involved in about 25 lawsuits, ranging from intervening on behalf of the Forest Service against the timber industry or off-road vehicle users, to suing to stop roads and motorized recreation. We've won all but two of our cases, upholding many road and route closures and preventing new construction.

Bibliographic Database
In 1995, Reed Noss, (Davis-Shine Professor of Conservation Biology at the University of Central Florida) oversaw development of a bibliographic database on the ecological effects of roads and motorized recreation. We've updated the database every other year, and it now contains more than 10,000 citations. It's been used by activists and land managers throughout the U.S., including nearly every federal agency that manages land (e.g. Park Service, Environmental Protection Agency, Bureau of Indian Affairs). Researchers from Australia, Brazil, Canada, England, Germany, Indonesia, Israel, New Zealand, Pakistan, Sweden, The Netherlands, and many other countries have also used the database - it is one of the largest collections of road and off-road vehicle information in the world.

Information Requests
Wildlands CPR responds to an average of 500 informatin requests per year - roughly 6,000 since our inception. Requests include anything from bibliographic searches to strategy consultations; many people also access our resources directly online.

Protecting our remaining roadless land from off-road vehicles and more roads is critical to our work. And unneeded and damaging roads should be removed and restored back to wild nature.

Road restoration protects water sources

Removing roads restores our watersheds and enhances water supplies for drinking, irrigation and boating. For example, the city of Seattle is investing $6 million over the next 20 years to remove roads in their watershed instead of spending far more money building and maintaining a water filtration plant.

Photo by Mark Alan Wilson

Road restoration improves fish and wildlife habitat for people to enjoy

Wildlife like elk and bear thrive in roadless forests. Watershed restoration also provides clean water for fish like salmon and trout, and solitude for all Americans to enjoy.

Photo contributed by Scott Stouder

Road restoration strengthens local economies

Road removal brings high-skilled, family-wage jobs to local workers and communities. Restoration puts people to work mending the land and water.

Wendell Larkin, Excavator, 12+ years restoration experience. Photo by John McCullah

Current Programs

Wildlands CPR's current programs include Restoration and Off-Road Vehicle/Transportation Policy. Our Restoration Program seeks to elevate road removal as an integral component of forest restoration, by combining the ecological benefits of road removal with the economic benefits of road removal jobs. Since it is often the motorized recreationists who want to keep roads open, and fight road removal restoration efforts by demanding more and more access to the backcountry, our Restoration and Transportation Policy programs work in tandem: neutralizing the opposition to road removal through effective organizing and policy, de-paves the way for road removal.

2006-2008 Actions & Accomplishments

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Pueblo Mts Road Closure. Photo by S. Moore

2008

2008 Annual Report. In 2008 Wildlands CPR led national conservation efforts to secure increased funding for watershed restoration on public lands. We also continued to play a strong leadership role in the campaign to stop off-road vehicle abuse on national forests. For fifteen years now, Wildlands CPR has identified strategic solutions to intractable conservation, transportation, and restoration problems on public lands. 2008 was no exception, with real on-the-ground success in both our transportation and restoration programs.

Published and distributed ~1000 copies of Best Management Practices (pdf) for Off-Road Vehicles in Forested Ecosystems, in conjunction with Six Strategies for Success: Effective off-road vehicle management on public lands, to Forest Service, Park Service and Bureau of Land Management staff.

Settled a lawsuit with the National Park Service over off-road vehicle management in National Parks. The settlement identified pilot parks where new reporting methods will be tested, and it guaranteed that parks that have not undertaken planning for off-road vehicles (where such use is allowed), will complete the needed planning.

Implemented a strategy for stimulus funding for LRRI that was incorporated by national environmental and sporting organizations and other diverse partners. (More than 100 groups and individuals directly endorsed our proposal.)

Secured language in the stimulus bill that ensures the Forest Service can spend a portion of their funds on road decommissioning (finalized in 2009).

Published a leather-bound collector’s edition of our book (and accompanying woodcut engravings), A Road Runs Through It, which was signed by all 26 of the living authors.

2007

2007 Annual Report. Bringing home the bacon… That short phrase pretty much sums up Wildlands CPR’s most significant successes last year. Through two campaigns, we helped secure $73 million for federal and state agencies for public lands watershed restoration (to be spent mostly in 2008)! To accomplish this and our other work, we expanded significantly — increasing our staff from six to ten people and engaging in more work on-the-ground.

Wildlands CPR and the UC-Davis Road Ecology Center have organized an Organized Oral Session on road removal at the Ecological Society of America/Society for Ecological Restoration conference this August in San Jose, CA. Click here for a list of speakers and more information.

New Report Reveals Enforcement Solutions to Off-Road Vehicle Abuse of Public Land. The report was mentioned in several articles highlighting abuses and was distributed to more than 100 agency staff and over 150 partner organizations.

Wildlands CPR's Publication "Road Ripper's Guide to Off-Road Vehicles" Helps Halt a 1,000 Acre ORV Park. Quilcene, WA resident Connie Gallant writes to tell us how our Road Ripper's Guide helped her citizen group to develop a successful campaign against ORV's.

Road Removal Article Featured in the Dartmouth Green Magazine. Former intern, Josh Hurd, writes about Road Removal and the New Economy.

Video News Release Introducing Montana's New Restoration Initiative. Watch the video here.

A Road Runs Through It reading, Gardiner, Montana. Sponsored by the Bear Creek Council, contributors David Havlick, Tom Petersen and Carolyn Duckworth read at the Gardiner Community Center in June 2007.

2006

Effective Collaboration Training Workshop. Forest Service planners, conservationists, off-road vehicle riders, backcountry horsemen and others from Montana and Idaho gathered in Missoula for a workshop on working together to resolve conflicts around motorized use and abuse of national forests. Click here for the press release.

Road RIPorter Recommended as Further Reading by Utne Reader, according to Utne Reader's Street Librarian, which "highlights publications whose creators are motivated by passion for ideas instead of profit." Thanks Utne!

A Road Runs Through It: Limited Collector's Edition Available. A special fundraising project of Wildlands CPR includes a leather bound edition signed by every contributor including Annie Proulx, Peter Matthiessen, Barry Lopez and two dozen more. The Special Collection also includes the six original wood engraving prints from the book. Available September 2007.

A Road Runs Through It Book Reading in Ashland, OR. Contributor Pepper Trail presented a reading from our book on Thursday, Oct. 12, 2006 at the Northwest Nature Shop.

10th Circuit Court Upholds Travel Restrictions on BLM Lands to Halt Off-Road Vehicle Abuse in Utah. BLM off-road vehicle restrictions are upheld in Utah.

Victory for Wildlands! Court Dumps Bush Roadless Repeal. A federal court tossed out the Bush administration's rewrite of the "Roadless Rule" for America's forests and reinstated a Clinton-era rule that protected 58.5 million acres of roadless areas.

A Road Runs Through It Book Reading at Montana Festival of the Book. Contribors David Quamann, Phil Condon, Carolyn Duckworth and our very own Tom Petersen gave a spirited reading to 60 people at the Festival in Missoula, MT in September 2006.

Comments on Proposed Changes to the National Trails Classification System. 57 organizations sign on. (Word doc)

Wildlands CPR's 2006 Gifts Campaign. Wildlands CPR raised more than $30,000 in our 4th Annual Gifts Campaign.

2006 Wild Rockies Rendezvous. Wildlands CPR co-sponsors The Rendezvous which brings together citizens to discuss the future of wilderness, wildlife, restoration and collaboration in the Wild Rockies.

The Governor's Restoration Forum 2006: Wildlands CPR co-sponsors a forum that highlights the Economic and Public Benefits of Revitalizing Montana Landscapes.

Strategic Mini-Grants Awarded to Activists Wildlands CPR awards strategic mini-grants to activists in the thick of off-road vehicle planning.

Wildlands CPR Files an Unnecessary Lawsuit Blown deadlines and an unjustly denied fee waiver request by the Forest Service has forced Wildlands CPR to file a lawsuit that should not be necessary.

Ecosystem Management Decision Support Wildlands CPR helps organize a Forest Service Regional Training Academy workshop on using Ecosystem Management Decision Support (EMDS) in transportation planning.

"It is refreshing to work with Wildlands CPR because they have a real hands on approach to restoration issues and are genuine in understanding and support of those who work in the woods. Because they have technical expertise in restoring degraded road systems they bring practical perspective and credible information to the discussion of policies related to roads on our public lands. Plus, they are fun people to be around and work with."

-Maia Enzer, Sustainable Northwest

1995-2005 Actions & Accomplishments Highlights

Activist and agency trainings
We have trained more than 1,000 agency staff and citizen activists in road removal, road inventory and motorized recreation workshops. For example, in 2006 we organized three trainings to introduce new Forest Service staff to road removal resources that work well. A Region 6 training occurred with Annie Connor, Road Removal Project Leader on the Clearwater National Forest speaking with approximately 100 other agency staff on road decommissioning efforts. A second training occurred in Reno, NV with regions 2,3, 4 of the Forest Service, with Marnie Criley, our Restoration Program coordinator, and Rebecca Lloyd of the Nez Perce Tribe, one of our restoration partners. A third 2006 workshop was a technical training focused on new GIS models for prioritizing which roads and motorized routes to keep open and which to close. About 25 Region 1 staff, University of Montana faculty, EPA personnel, and private consultants attended it.

Establishment of effective coalitions
In 1999, Wildlands CPR and 106 other groups submitted an administrative rulemaking petition to the Forest Service challenging their management of off-road vehicles. As follow up, we were a lead group in creating the Natural Trails and Waters Coalition, a national campaign to fight motorized recreation, and continue to serve as co-chair of the steering committee. Other members of the steering committee include American Hiking Society, SUWA, Bluewater Network/Friends of the Earth, Colorado Mountain Club, Great Old Broads for Wilderness and the Sierra Club. More than 100 grassroots groups around the country have joined as active members.

Resource Toolbox and Strategies distributed to agencies and activists
Wildlands CPR has worked with more than 250 groups around the country to assist them in their road and off-road vehicle battles and to help them promote road removal and restoration. We have published an economic report on the job potential of road removal, title, ""Investing in Communities, Investing in the Land;" a brochure on funding options for land management agency staff; a lay guide to transportation planning titled, "Planning Pathways;" a complete Handbook of Road Resources and Guides including the Guide to Road Removal, which was selected for the National Agricultural Library collection; and a 12,000 citation online bibliographic database on the ecological effects of roads and motorized recreation.

On-the-ground success
Our strategy and policy work revolves around a single goalâ€”on-the-ground results. For example, in Florida's Big Cypress National Preserve, after seven years working with the Florida Biodiversity Project, and on behalf of the National Park Service, a county magistrate ruled in our favor to permanently close 23,000 miles of muddy, rutted two tracks in Big Cypress, the first National Preserve in the U.S. This protects thousands of acres of the Preserve's natural areas. Legislatively guaranteed, off-road vehicles will only be allowed on 400 miles of designated routes. We also worked closely with Sky Island Alliance to help establish their very successful road removal program. In six years their program has involved 600 volunteers who have inventoried 2,000 miles of system roads and removed more than 60 miles, with more scheduled.

"Wildlands CPR first came to my attention when as Forest Supervisor of the Lewis and Clark National Forest, I realized that these folks had much better monitoring data on road closures than we did. Since then they've assumed a leadership role in helping citizens and forest managers understand and implement effective road decommissioning and monitoring of off-road vehicle impacts. Their latest publication, Investing in Communities, Investing in the Land, is an exciting testament to the achievability of sustainable economies and ecosystems in the rural west. Thank you Wildlands CPR, just in time to resuscitate our beloved lands!"

-Gloria Flora, Sustainable Obtainable Solutions

Mission

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Wildlands CPR revives and protects wild places by promoting watershed restoration to improve fish and wildlife habitat, provide clean water and enhance community economies.

We focus on reclaiming ecologically damaging, unneeded roads and on stopping off-road vehicle abuse.

Photo by John S. Adams

Vision

Wildlands CPR strives to create a future in which:

· watersheds have been actively restored to provide clean water, be resilient in the face of climate change, and support healthy fish and wildlife populations on public lands;

· transportation systems and recreational activities are managed in a way that ensures ecological integrity on public lands;

· watershed restoration actively connects people to the land, and in so doing instills an ecological-sustainability ethic as the overarching goal of land management; and

· the restoration sector of the economy is robust, supplying green jobs that restore public and private lands.

Grizzly bear. Photo by Dan Hartman

About Us

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Wildlands CPR revives and protects wild places by promoting watershed restoration to improve fish and wildlife habitat, provide clean water and enhance community economies.

We focus on reclaiming ecologically damaging, unneeded roads and on stopping off-road vehicle abuse.

Wildlands CPR has been working with citizens, grassroots groups, tribes, and land managers to protect and revive natural areas since 1994. We go wherever we are needed – from the cypress woodlands of Florida, to the red-rock canyons of Utah, to the fragile tundra of the Arctic.

Our members include hunters, hikers, cross-country skiers, photographers, business owners, anglers, scientists, students, teachers, parents and many others.

We work to restore watersheds and rural economies by promoting road reclamation, which provides high-wage, high-skill jobs to people in rural communities. Their work to remove roads restores clean drinking water, reconnects fragmented wildlife habitat and ensures access to healthy habitat and quiet places, for human-powered recreation.

Our successes are many. In Big Cypress National Preserve, for example, we partnered with other groups to get the Park Service to rein in off-road vehicle use, reducing 23,000 miles of renegade tracks to just 400 miles of designated routes. In 2007 we helped secure more than $73 million for state and federal agencies to implement watershed restoration and remediation (Montana state lands - $34 million; (Forest Service - $39.4 million). In 2008 we coordinated the distribution of nearly 5000 copies of the book Thrillcraft: The Environmental Consequences of Motorized Recreation, working in partnership with more than 100 groups nationwide to put these books in the hands of decision-makers, media and land managers. During the last 14 years, we’ve trained more than one thousand citizens throughout the country to inventory roads, monitor off-road vehicle use, and remove unneeded roads. And in the last 4 years, more than 300 agency staff have attended Wildlands CPR restoration and off-road vehicle management workshops.

Lamar River Valley. Photo by Adam Switalski