News

WE ARE HIRING!Staff Attorney Advocates for the West seeks an experienced attorney to join our team of passionate environmental attorneys to protect the American West through strategic litigation and legal advocacy. The position will initially focus on assisting with existing litigation, and then expand to include a wide range of cases involving public lands, fish and…

Happy Holidays from Advocates for the West! As we look ahead to 2021, Advocates for the West is filled with gratitude for our supporters (you!), our partners, and each other. This year presented challenges we never could have imagined. But thanks to you, our conservation community, we are still fighting – and winning! – for the West. Advocates…

Advocates for the West recently filed a new lawsuit claiming the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest is placing bighorn sheep at high risk of disease outbreaks by authorizing domestic sheep grazing in the vicinity of bighorn herds. Senior Attorney Laurie Rule and Staff Attorney Lizzy Potter are representing WildEarth Guardians and Western Watersheds Project in this suit, which asserts that the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest has known of the high risk that…

The state of Wyoming recently released the framework for a system proposing that developers “offset” destroyed sage-grouse habitat if they cannot avoid disturbing the landscape. This plan effectively paves the way for the state to auction off oil and gas leases within sage-grouse habitat, so long as the developers commit to contributing to a slush…

Last week, U.S. Magistrate Judge Candy Dale issued a decision giving Advocates for the West a sweeping victory in our case challenging the U.S. Air Force’s plans to indefinitely conduct urban warfare training involving F-15 fighter jets and plain clothes ground teams in Boise and other southern Idaho cities and towns.  “I’m delighted with Judge Dale’s decision,”…

Advocates for the West is challenging the Trump Administration’s reckless land use plan for the Uncompahgre region of western Colorado in a new lawsuit. The plan opens vast areas – including the prized North Fork Valley – to oil and gas drilling and fails to protect wilderness-quality public lands, wildlife habitat and other valuable natural resources. …

Advocates for the West is working with Conservation Lands Foundation, Conserve Southwest Utah and other allies in an effort to stop the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) from punching a four-lane highway through an area acquired for the purposes of conservation and recreation in southwest Utah’s Red Cliffs National Conservation Area (NCA). BLM’s own environmental review…

The Confluence Project is a collaboration between contemporary landscape painter Rachel Teannalach and Advocates for the West. We are working in tandem to advocate for the Pacific Salmon and the elaborate river and ocean ecosystems of which it is a part. This collection of over 24 paintings follows the migration route of the Pacific Salmon from Stanley River…

Twenty-six wolves killed—including the Profanity Peak Pack—due to agency’s continued preferential treatment for livestock grazing over coexistence with wildlife. Advocates for the West filed suit yesterday over the U.S. Forest Service’s inaction to protect gray wolves in Washington’s Colville National Forest, where livestock ranching activities have incited conflict. The agency’s negligence has resulted in the deaths…

Advocates for the West recently filed our opening brief in a case to protect four herds of bighorn sheep that occupy habitat in close proximity to the Wishbone allotment in Colorado’s Rio Grande National Forest. The Forest Service knew that grazing domestic sheep within the allotment threatened to infect these bighorn herds with deadly pathogens, yet still authorized grazing in the area. Domestic sheep carry a pathogen that causes pneumonia…