AWR Blog
Help the Alliance protect Yellowstone Grizzly Bears
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 still present 200 years...
Grant proposal to support hiring of AWR legal staff – Summer 2022
Why we need to fund AWR senior staff attorney/legal director position, and potentially a junior staff attorney position EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Alliance for the Wild Rockies, a 501(c)(3) non-profit conservation organization based in Montana, is seeking a grant to help fund...
Federal Court Halts Illegal Logging in Endangered Grizzly Habitat in NW Montana
On May 25, a federal district court in Montana halted a large-scale industrial logging project in endangered grizzly bear habitat in northwestern Montana. The Alliance for the Wild Rockies requested the preliminary injunction to protect the small, isolated, and...
National Park Service drains “critical habitat” bull trout river to grow hay for cows
Photo courtesy of Pat Clayton The Clark Fork River is federally-designated as “critical habitat” for bull trout, which have been listed as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act since 1999. The Upper Clark Fork is also part of the nation’s largest Superfund...
Protect Old Growth and Mature Forests
Protect Old Growth and Mature Forests On Earth Day, President Biden announced a new policy to protect mature and old growth trees which store the most carbon. Unfortunately, the president’s order will not ban logging of mature and old-growth forests or even protect...
Huge Castle Mountains logging, burning and road-building project stopped by AWR
Northern Goshawk - USFWS National Digital Library Thanks to a lawsuit brought by the Alliance for the Wild Rockies and the Native Ecosystem Council, a 22,500 acre logging, burning, and road-building project in Montana’s Castle Mountains has been stopped by a federal...
What are the Greater Yellowstone Coalition’s Ethics Worth?
What are the Greater Yellowstone Coalition’s Ethics Worth?Do you ever wonder how much your ethics are worth? Apparently, for the Greater Yellowstone Coalition (GYC) the price is considerably more than the “30 pieces of silver”Judas got for his sell out, but that was...
Forest Service Withdraws Appeal of Massive Logging and Road-building Project in Grizzly Bear Habitat
Photo: Glenn Phillips It’s hard to imagine the damage an enormous timber sale would have had on 70 square miles of Montana’s Ninemile Valley, located about seven miles northwest of Huson, in the Lolo National Forest. But thanks to our lawsuit and two federal court...
Alliance for the Wild Rockies successfully halts grazing and sagebrush-juniper burning in the Elkhorn Mountains Wildlife Management Area
A federal district court ruled in favor of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Native Ecosystems Council in a lawsuit to force the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to conduct an adequate environmental analysis before grazing and burning in the Iron Mask Acquisition...
Don’t Hack the Yaak
If you haven’t been to the Cabinet-Yaak region in northwest Montana, you ought to go. You will find an incredibly beautiful landscape that alternates from rugged, glaciated peaks, to dense coniferous forests with lush meadows and riparian areas along the meandering...
The Alliance needs your help to fight nuclear reactors in Montana
For the last 44 years, nuclear power in Montana has been banned unless approved by the voters. The ban was passed by Citizen Initiative, but Republican majorities in the 2021 Montana legislature repealed the the ban and Republican Governor Gianforte signed the bill...
Happy 80th Birthday Carole King, the hardest working advocate for our planet, #NREPA, and the Alliance For The Wild Rockies!
Carole, you are the best! Photo credit: Kirsten Shultz
Big Victory for Grizzly Bears and Wild, Free-Roaming Elk in Montana
On December 13, a federal court in Montana handed down a big victory for elk and grizzly bears in Montana. The U.S. Forest Service had approved a commercial logging and road-building project on public lands in Montana’s upper Blackfoot River watershed, an incredibly...
Setting the record straight on Citizens’ Rights
Politicians like Sen. Daines (R-MT) and Gov. Gianforte (R-MT) have erroneously claimed that the Alliance for the Wild Rockies gets rich off the Equal Access to Justice Act for working to keep Montana and the rest of the northern Rockies, “high, wide and handsome.” It...
Infrastructure and Budget Bills Contain Very Bad Logging Provisions that Makes Climate Change Worse
Clearcut, Siuslaw National Forest, Oregon. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair. In so many ways the future hangs in the balance as Congress debates the $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill and $1 trillion infrastructure bill. Although encouraging the use of more electric...
Time to Stop Clearcutting Our National Forests
Photo: Vicki Anfinson The Alliance for the Wild Rockies is putting up a billboard in Helena with this picture of a massive Forest Service clearcut along the trail to Blackhall Meadows in the Helena National Forest. The Forest Service claimed this utter destruction...
Protecting grizzly habitat
Photo by Glenn Phillips, www.glennphillipsphoto.com. Misclassified roads in our national forests probably pose the most imminent threat to grizzly habitat today — and today there are many more such roads than there were in 1993. Montana’s Gov. Greg Gianforte...
Why We’re Suing to Stop the Forest Service From Clearcutting Lynx Habitat in Greater Yellowstone
Canada lynx, recognized by its large, black ear tufts, is considered recovered and may be removed from the list of endangered and threatened species. Photo courtesy of Eric Kilby/Creative Commons. What do you do when the Forest Service ignores federal court orders,...
Remove non-native fish without poisoning our streams
Photo: N. Herbert NPS Two weeks ago, Laurie Brown, a licensed nurse practitioner, called the Alliance for the Wild Rockies out of concern for the Game Creek watershed. She lives just south of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and gets her drinking water from a well adjacent to...
Alliance for the Wild Rockies Files Second Lawsuit to Stop North Idaho Logging in Grizzly Habitat
Photo by Roger Hayden In response to the U.S. Forest Service violating a court order and injunction against the Hanna Flats logging project in Northern Idaho, the Alliance for the Wild Rockies filed a second lawsuit on June 7th seeking to force the government to...
Biden administration a welcome change in forest service plans
One of the Trump administration’s worst projects, which would have burned a million acres of the Caribou-Targhee National Forest, has been halted in its tracks by Biden’s Forest Service after the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Native Ecosystems Council, and...
Federal Court Rules Idaho Pipeline Challenge Can Proceed
On March 8th, a federal court in Idaho ruled that a legal challenge to a natural gas pipeline can proceed. The lawsuit was filed by two grassroots conservation groups — Yellowstone to Uintas Connection and the Alliance for the Wild Rockies — and it challenges the...
Conservation Groups Sue To Stop Massive Logging and Burning Project in Castle Mountains
The Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Native Ecosystems Council recently filed a lawsuit in federal court to stop the Castle Mountains logging and burning project in the Lewis and Clark National Forest. The Castle Mountains are a pristine, island mountain range in the...
Conservation Victory! Biden administration pulls massive Henry’s Fork logging and burning project next to Yellowstone National Park
Last December the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Native Ecosystems Council, and Yellowstone to Uintas Connection took the Trump administration's Forest Service to federal court over plans to massively log and burn over 40,000 acres in the very headwaters of the...