News

Advocates for the West and our conservation partners are speaking out against a recently approved mine exploration project proposal in the headwaters of the Boise River. The U.S. Forest Service authorized a four-year plan by Idaho Copper Corporation to construct up to eight miles of new roads and clear 122 drill pads on National Forest…

Advocates for the West and our conservation partners filed suit against the Eugene Water and Electric Board (EWEB) alleging ongoing violations of the Endangered Species Act (ESA). For over sixteen years, the public utility has been out of legal compliance with federal requirements to provide proper fish passage for ESA-listed Chinook salmon and bull trout…

Advocates for the West and a coalition of local and national conservation groups sued the U.S. Forest Service today for its approval of the Stibnite Gold Project, an open-pit cyanide leach gold mine in Idaho’s Salmon River Mountains that would jeopardize public health and clean water, harm threatened species, and permanently scar thousands of acres…

Advocates for the West won a significant victory in our sweeping case challenging thousands of oil and gas leases in sage-grouse habitats. On Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that the first Trump administration illegally approved hundreds of oil and gas leases on public lands and prohibited any further development of those…

Today, the National Park Service, Resource Renewal Institute, Center for Biological Diversity, Western Watersheds Project, Point Reyes Seashore Ranching Association, other Point Reyes National Seashore ranchers, and The Nature Conservancy reached a landmark agreement to settle a decades-long land-use conflict over the future of dairying, cattle ranching, and wildlife management at northern California’s Point Reyes…

Advocates for the West and our partners won a major victory to protect Red Cliffs National Conservation Area (NCA) in southwest Utah from a destructive highway proposal. Yesterday, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) signed a Record of Decision to deny a right-of-way for the four-lane Northern Corridor…

Today, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) released its final Environmental Impact Statement and proposed plan amendments for Greater Sage-Grouse Rangewide Planning, laying out the blueprint of the agency’s intentions for 65 million acres of the bird’s public lands habitat but falling far short of what science says the birds need to avoid extinction. Conservation groups…

Today, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) released a final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) indicating BLM’s intent to deny a right-of-way for the proposed four-lane Northern Corridor Highway through Red Cliffs National Conservation Area (NCA) in southwestern Utah near Zion National Park. The Utah Department of Transportation’s proposed Northern Corridor Highway…

In recent weeks, Advocates for the West and our partners compiled and submitted formal objections against two separate—and significantly flawed—environmental reviews and draft approvals of mining activity in Idaho. Stibnite Gold Mine On October 18, a coalition of Advocates for the West’s conservation partners submitted objections to the final Environmental Impact Statement and draft Record…

After taking similar legal action in two other cases in recent months, Advocates for the West and our partners at the Conservation Lands Foundation and The Wilderness Society filed a motion to intervene to defend the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) Public Lands Rule against a lawsuit brought this past summer by the State of…