2013 Grassroots Activist of the Year: Denise Boggs

The Fund for Wild Nature’s Grassroots Activist of the Year Award for 2013 celebrates Denise Boggs. Denise is the director of Conservation Congress, which she founded in 2004 to protect national forests and wildlife that needed uncompromising defense.

Conservation Congress currently focuses on the national forests in northern California that are home to the Northern spotted owl, a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. With support from the Fund for Wild Nature, Denise has been vigorously applying the ESA in order to stop the Forest Service’s logging projects in spotted owl habitat. Conservation Congress is currently in court challenging seven timber sales on three national forests. The Forest Service recently halted all of the timber sales being litigated by Conservation Congress while it reevaluates potential harms to the spotted owl from the proposed logging. And last year, the Forest Service withdrew the “Salt” timber sale on the Shasta-Trinity National Forest after Conservation Congress filed suit. The impact of Conservation Congress’s work is abundantly evident on the Shasta-Trinity National Forest. In 2007, the Shasta-Trinity had by far the highest level of logging of any national forest in California. Five years later, thanks to Denise’s committed defense of that forest, logging levels there have plummeted by over 63 percent!

Prior to Conservation Congress, Denise founded the Utah Environmental Congress to provide a bold voice on national forest issues in Utah. As executive director of UEC, she successfully challenged numerous logging projects. By the time she stepped down as director in order to create Conservation Congress, the volume of timber sold from the national forests in Utah had fallen by 66 percent! Denise now serves on the board of directors of UEC. With support from the Fund for Wild Nature, UEC has continued to be an important grassroots conservation advocate in Utah. For example, in February, the Forest Service withdrew the “Iron Springs” logging project in response to an appeal filed by the UEC and its allies. This project would have logged over eight square miles of forest, including old-growth and proposed wilderness.

Through her many accomplishments with Conservation Congress and Utah Environmental Congress, Denise Boggs demonstrates the power and effectiveness of the bold grassroots environmental activism that is supported by your donations to the Fund for Wild Nature.

 

2012 Fund for Wild Nature Project Grantees

First-time grantees (6 of 38) are underlined

Allegheny Defense Project (PA)

Funded the protection of Pennsylvania’s Allegheny National Forest from massive oil and gas drilling and road-building projects through citizen monitoring, legal advocacy, and grassroots organizing.

Battle Creek Alliance (CA)        

Funded a grassroots campaign to end clearcutting and herbicide spraying in the headwaters of the Battle Creek Watershed and other watersheds.

Biodiversity Conservation Alliance (WY)

Supported three forest defense lawsuits in the Rocky Mountains to challenge approval of a motorbike trail in the Medicine Bow National Forest’s Middle Fork Roadless Area, excessive logging in the Black Hills, and failure to maintain bighorn sheep viability on the Medicine Bow.

Blue Mountains Biodiversity Project (OR)

Supported ongoing ecosystem defense in four national forests of eastern Oregon through field-checking, appeals, alliance building, and litigation to stop destructive timber sales and toxic herbicide use.

Burns Bog Conservation Society (BC, Canada)

Funded a grassroots campaign to stop MK Delta Lands’ rezoning application for a parcel of land within the main bog that would allow development and litigation to stop the South Fraser Perimeter Road, both in the fragile Burns Bog.

Cascadia Wildlands (OR)

Supported a legal challenge that aims to halt ongoing rainforest clearcutting on the Elliott, Clatsop and Tillamook State Forests in western Oregon that comprise nearly 600,000 acres and is vital habitat for federally endangered species, including the marbled murrelet.

Center for Environmental Equity (OR)

Funded citizen oversight of the Grassy Mountain Gold Mine and Aurora Uranium Mining projects to insure strict compliance with the Oregon’s Chemical Process Mining Law with a goal of stopping the two projects.

Cherokee Forest Voices (TN)

Funded Forest Watch, a program that achieves on-the-ground protection and restoration of ecologically sensitive areas within the Cherokee National Forest of Tennessee.

Conservation Congress (CA)Supported a Forest Monitoring Program in northern California, specifically on the Shasta-Trinity National Forest, to stop destructive timber sales, grazing allotments, motorized recreation, and mining through public participation, advocacy, and litigation.

Cook Inletkeeper (AK)

Funded The White Whale’s Last Stand project that will allow Cook Inletkeeper to participate on the Beluga Whale recovery team, assigned to develop and implement the recovery plan for this federally endangered whale.

Cottonwood Law Center (WY)

Funded litigation against the USFS for authorizing motorized use in an inventoried roadless area in the Eastern Snowy Range in Wyoming.

Earth First! Speakers Bureau (WA)

Funded the coordination of speaking engagements focused on connecting with the Occupy Wall Street movement and university groups to promote biocentrism, grassroots activism, direct involvement in ecological issues and support for the independent media sources of the environmental movement.

Ebbetts Pass Forest Watch (CA)

Supported the effort to halt clearcutting and change forest policy in the Sierra Nevada through advocacy, education, and coalition building.

Friends of Blackwater (WV)

Funded forest watch activities to stop a number of USFS logging projects that would negatively impact the federally endangered West Virginia northern flying squirrel and other rare high mountains species by making their habitat more vulnerable to climate change.

Friends of the Clearwater (ID)

Funded litigation to stop implementation of the USFS’s Clearwater National Forest Travel Plan that violates wildlife standards, fails to disclose impacts to fisheries and wildlife and violates executive orders on off-road vehicle use in crucial roadless areas.

Friends of Knowland Park (CA)

Funded a lawsuit seeking to require a full Environmental Impact Report on the Oakland Zoo Development plan which would destroy a critical wildlife corridor.

Friends of the Missouri Breaks Monument (MT)

Supported the campaign to protect the wild prairie of north-central Montana through grassroots advocacy aimed at changing the Bureau of Land Management Hi-Line management plan.

Friends of the Swainson’s Hawk (CA)

Funded protection of nesting, foraging, and riparian habitat for Swainson’s hawk in South Sacramento County through volunteer efforts to comment on the final approval processes for the South Sacramento County Habitat Conservation Plan and Elk Grove expansion Environmental Impact Report.

Kentucky Heartwood (KY)

Funded the Old Growth Recovery project that will shift emphasis on the Daniel Boone NF in Kentucky from commercial timber management to the conservation and recovery of old growth forest communities through education, advocacy, and front-line forest defense.

Klamath Forest Alliance (CA)

Helped to stop harmful grazing on the Klamath National Forest through photo and water testing by volunteers and interns and developing restoration plans.

Living Rivers (UT)

Funded a campaign to stop tar sands and oil shale strip mining projects near Moab, which includes litigation, outreach, education, and public policy initiatives.

Northwest Ecosystem Survey Team (OR)

Supported volunteer-based field work to halt logging on ancient forests and preserve complex ecosystems on federal public land.

Ogeechee Riverkeeper (GA)

Funded a citizen suit under the Clean Water Act against King America Finishing textile plant for illegally discharging pollution into the Ogeechee River that caused the largest fish kill in GA’s history.

Palm Beach County Environmental Coalition (FL)

Supported a campaign to challenge the Scripps Biotech expansion in Palm Beach County that would destroy precious habitat for endangered and threatened species.

RESTORE The North Woods (ME)

Provides ongoing support for the Maine Woods National Park Campaign to preserve and restore the Maine Woods by opposing harmful industrial activities and permanently protecting a 3.2 million acre Maine Woods National Park and Preserve.

Rocky Mountain Recreation Initiative (CO)

Offered ongoing support for using the agency motorized route designation process to close ORV trails and preserve Colorado’s remote backcountry.

San Luis Valley Ecosystem Council (CO)

Supported an ongoing campaign to urge the U.S. Forest Service to reject a land exchange for a massive development at Wolf Creek that would harm critical migration corridors, fen wetlands, and water quality at the headwaters of the Rio Grande.

Save The Cedar League (BC, Canada)

Supported the Walker Rainforest Wilderness Park strategy to protect a biologically rich 2.5 million-acre Rainforest Conservation Corridor, the world’s only inland temperate rainforest that includes securing government moratorium on all industrial development within the proposed Park and developing a Rainforest Conservation Corridor map strategy.

Siskiyou Land Conservancy (CA)

Funded a project to reduce the heavy use of highly toxic pesticides on lily farms that surround the Smith River Estuary, one of the wildest, most pristine rivers in the West. The estuary is valuable habitat for recovery of several endangered species, particularly salmonids.

South Florida Wildlands Association (FL)

Supported the protection of habitat for the critically endangered Florida panther and other rare and listed species in south Florida by blocking the construction of a Florida Power & Light power plant.

Southern Plains Land Trust (CO)

Assisted SPLT’s efforts to organize and advocate for native prairie plants, animals, and ecosystems on southern plains national grasslands managed by the Forest Service.

Swan View Coalition (MT)

Supported a project to protect the fish, wildlife, and quiet enjoyment of the Flathead National Forest through citizen monitoring/enforcement, legal advocacy, and public outreach.

Utah Environmental congress (UT)

Funded UEC’s Forest Monitoring Program that tracks, appeal, and litigates harmful Forest Service projects on all six National Forests in Utah, primarily evaluating timber sales, livestock grazing, coal mining, oil and gas development and motorized recreation.

Western Lands Project (WA)

Funded the Call to Action for Energy Democracy grassroots campaign to demand localized, democratic, distributed generation of energy in the built environment as a superior alternative to massive solar and wind facilities on public lands and in fragile environments.

Wild Connections (CO)

Supported the Green Fire Wilderness Project to permanently protect the proposed Browns Canyon National Monument/Wilderness and ten roadless areas on the Pike-San Isabel National Forest.

Wild Equity Institute (CA)

Funded litigation to protect and restore North America’s most beautiful and most imperiled serpent, the San Francisco garter snake in the San Francisco Bay Area from habitat destruction caused by golf course construction and the Lange’s metalmark butterfly in the Antioch Dunes National Wildlife Refuge caused by new power plant emissions.

Wilderness Watch (MT)

Funded a project to remove Fish Lake Dam in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness that impedes natural stream flows, submerges a rare high-elevation meadow, and reduces wetland habitats for native amphibians and species.

WildWest Institute (MT)

Provides ongoing support to protect and restore public lands in the Northern Rockies Bioregion through ecosystem defense and watershed and fire restoration, and Roadless Rockies Program.

 

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