The Alliance Blog
Learn about our ongoing work and success in holding our government agencies accountable to the laws that protect our ecosystems and species from habitat destruction caused by extractive industries.
Top Ten Things the Alliance did to protect the Northern Rockies Ecosystem in 2025
In 2025 the Alliance for the Wild Rockies protected 2,672 square miles -- 1.7 MILLION acres -- of wildlife habitat on National Forests with our victories in court. No other environmental group came even close to protecting this much habitat. We did this by filing...
Lawsuits protect grizzly bears in NW Montana
Photo: Frank van Manen /USGS Alliance for the Wild Rockies understands that when the government breaks the law and destroys the essential habitat upon which endangered species like grizzly bears rely, the only way to stop the destruction is to file a lawsuit. Last...
Elk, not wild bison, have transmitted brucellosis to Montana cattle in every case
Photo: National Park Service With 2.1 million cattle in Montana, one might expect Governor Gianforte and our congressional delegation to know where cattle actually get brucellosis. But unfortunately, the governor and delegation appear locked into outdated,...
Alliance Court Victory Protects Grizzly Bears From Expanded Cattle Grazing in Paradise Valley
Sitting between two towering mountain ranges, Montana's Paradise Valley is aptly named. Cradling the mighty Yellowstone River that flows from Yellowstone National Park, the valley provides critical habitat to all the native species still present 200 years after Lewis...
Alliance for the Wild Rockies Stops the Chop in the Colville National Forest
A foggy morning at Calispell Meadows on the Colville National Forest in northeast Washington - Photo courtesy USFS Once again the Alliance for the Wild Rockies caught the Forest Service breaking the law, took the agency to court, and won. This time a Washington...
NREPA Will Designate all Greater Yellowstone Wilderness Study Areas as Wilderness
Buffalo Horn drainage in Gallatin Range. Photo by George Wuerthner There’s a boiling controversy right now over the future of hundreds of thousands of acres of Forest Service lands abutting Yellowstone National Park and comprising the core of the Greater Yellowstone...
Alliance for the Wild Rockies files lawsuit to stop massive clearcutting project in bull trout critical habitat watershed
Bull Trout by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Bull trout lost approximately 60 percent of their historic range before they were even listed as ‘threatened’ on the Endangered Species List in 1998. Yet the Forest Service wants to bulldoze and clearcut some of Montana's...
The State of Montana is Failing to Protect the Public’s Water and Fish
Dead fish from a creek earlier this summer when temperatures in Montana hit triple digits. (Photo by Larry Campbelli). Anyone who drives around the state of Montana right now can see one unassailable truth: our state’ renowned rivers and the prized fish which inhabit...
Wolves can’t go to court, so we went for them and won
Photo by Gary Kramer USFWS In an amazing court victory for wild wolves and advocates who tirelessly speak on their behalf, the federal district court in Missoula, Montana ruled that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service violated the Endangered Species Act when it...
Alliance Sues Forest Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to stop another massive clearcutting project west of Whitefish, Montana
Photo by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Alliance for the Wild Rockies sues Flathead Forest Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to stop another massive clearcutting project west of Whitefish, Montana Four conservation groups, Alliance for the Wild Rockies,...
A new gas pipeline will destroy dwindling Sage Grouse Habitat — but you can help stop it
Photo by USFWS The Forest Service authorized a Special Use Permit in March to allow a private company to clear-cut and bulldoze a 50-foot wide, 18.2-mile-long corridor through six National Forest Inventoried Roadless Areas for construction of a gas pipeline from...
Why we need the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act now more than ever
Brooke Rollins, Trump's Secretary of Agriculture, recently announced the administration's plan to repeal the 2001 Roadless Rule and open an estimated 58 million acres of public Forest Service land to road-building, resource extraction, and development. The Roadless...
Alliance for the Wild Rockies files lawsuit to prevent dewatering bull trout critical habitat in the Clark Fork River
Photo by US FWS The Clark Fork River is federally-designated “critical habitat” for bull trout, a “threatened” species under the Endangered Species Act since 1999. The Upper Clark Fork is also part of the nation’s largest Superfund site, having suffered severe...
Alliance for the Wild Rockies halts Forest Service plan to log and burn entire Manti-La Sal National Forest
Photo: US Forest Service Alliance for the Wild Rockies relies on private donations from individuals who want to protect the landscapes of the Rockies from destructive projects. As in this case, we cannot always recover the money we paid to hire an attorney. So, if you...
Government Cancels Illegal Logging Project near Yellowstone after Alliance Sues
Gravelly Mountain Range - U.S. Forest Service The U.S. Forest Service cancelled an illegal public land logging project due to a recently-filed lawsuit by Montana conservation group Alliance for the Wild Rockies on May 20th. The illegal logging was scheduled to occur...
Alliance stops secret logging and burning project in Uintas-Wasatch-Cache National Forest
Soapstone Basin in the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest - Photo by Recreation.gov What happens when government agencies try to sidestep the law and exclude the public on major projects? Well, sometimes they get away with it -- but not this time. The Forest...
Government burning of public lands is harming humans and killing millions of birds
Photo: Richard Prodgers Using the fear of wildfires, the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) are spending billions of taxpayer dollars to intentionally burn millions of acres of National Forests and BLM lands. Their plans are to continue to do so...
Federal Magistrate: Forest Service Failed Grizzlies in Paradise Valley Grazing
Photo by Glenn Phillips Montana’s Paradise Valley is aptly named. Sitting between two towering mountain ranges, it cradles the mighty Yellowstone River that flows from its headwaters in America’s first national park and provides critical habitat to the native species...
Lawsuit filed against permanent pipeline corridor in National Forest in Idaho
Photo by Richard Prodgers The Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Yellowstone to Uintas Connection filed a federal lawsuit this month to stop a proposed pipeline corridor that would cut through six roadless areas in a National Forest in Idaho. The area is habitat for...
Major Court Victory for Imperiled Selkirk Grizzly Bear Population in Idaho
Photo by Glenn Phillips It took the Alliance for the Wild Rockies almost six years of litigation fighting the US Forest Service through both the Trump and Biden administrations to try and save what's left of the imperiled grizzly bear population in Northern Idaho's...
Conservation Groups sue to protect grizzlies, lynx, and sage grouse in the Gravelly Mountains of Montana
Photo by Lisa Hupp/USFWS Yesterday, April 3, 2025, the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Council on Wildlife and Fish and Native Ecosystems Council filed a federal lawsuit to protect habitat for three rare wildlife species — grizzly bears, lynx, and sage grouse — in...
Senator Whitehouse and Congresswoman Dean introduce the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act
Custer-Gallatin National Forest next to Yellowstone National Park - photo by Custer-Gallatin National Forest On Thursday, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and Representative Madeleine Dean reintroduced the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act in the U.S. Senate (S....
Massive deforestation project that threatens grizzlies, lynx and wolverine halted
Photo by Michael Hoyt Thanks to our threat to sue the Forest Service over using a categorical exclusion to avoid analyzing impacts on bull trout, grizzly bears, and lynx, a massive deforestation project in Montana's Bitterroot Valley has been halted. The Forest...
The Alliance wins Ninth Circuit victory to protect imperiled Cabinet-Yaak grizzly bears in Montana
Photo by Glenn Phillips The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Native Ecosystems Council in their challenge to the Black Ram project on the Kootenai National Forest in Montana. The Ninth Circuit decision on February...
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Contact Us
Alliance for the Wild Rockies is a 501(C)3 non-profit organization. Our tax ID # is 81-0455740
Main office: 406-410-3373
Email: wildrockies@gmail.com
USPS: Alliance for the Wild Rockies
P.O. Box 505 Helena, MT 59624
Executive Director: Mike Garrity
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30 Years Of Service
