WINTER UPDATE - DECEMBER 2008

Dear Friend of the Wild Rockies,

Thank you for your past support of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies. We have had a successful year defending critical wildlife habitat in the Rockies but in our tough economy, we need your help more than ever. We have proven that we can be successful, but we need your help to do it. Please help us protect wildlife habitat for another year by sending us a donation today.

In 2008, we achieved several crucial goals.

• AWR made tremendous progress with the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act (NREPA). Speaker Pelosi came out in support or our wilderness bill and we received a commitment from House leaders to make a strong push to pass it. With your help we can have it on the next president’s desk for his signature.

• We won our North East Yaak timber sale lawsuit and the helicopter logging of grizzly bear habitat in NE Montana. Since helicopters drive grizzly bears from their habitat, this ruling by Federal District Judge Molloy in July will give grizzly bears in the Northern Rockies a much better chance of survival.

• We stopped the Beaverhead-Deerlodge and the Targhee National Forests from implementing two sagebrush burning projects after AWR filed suit. Sagebrush habitats have been identified as a habitat that is in jeopardy in the western United States. Fifty-seven species of mammals and 121 species of birds use sagebrush ecosystems on these two forests.

We have been successful lately with our lawsuits, winning 32 out of 38 cases. It’s clear that these timber sales are bad for wildlife but the Forest Service continues to propose them. If the Alliance for the Wild Rockies was not so successful many more species would have been pushed onto the endangered species list.

Please consider renewing your membership or making a special end of the year contribution to AWR. You can donate on our website: http://www.wildrockiesalliance.org/join/index.html.

When you protect wildlands, you make a gift to future generations. We rely heavily on the support of our members to make our work happen. Happy Holidays and thank you for your continued support for protection of the Wild Rockies.

Sincerely,

Michael T. Garrity

Executive Director