Building a Successful
Wilderness
Campaign
Lessons from the 1998 Wilderness Mentoring Conference
Reviewing the Philosophical Context
Reviewing the Political Context
Conclusion
Lessons Learned from Wilderness Campaigns
Listening to Campaign Advice
Externalize your message
Empower the community
Maintain perspective
Beginning a Successful Campaign
Putting Lessons Learned in the Context
of the Tongass Timber Reform Act Campaign
Defining the problem
Building coalitions
Conclusion
Offensive and Defensive Campaigns
Defining Offensive and Defensive Campaigns
What is a defensive campaign?
What is an offensive campaign?
Moving from a Defensive Campaign to an Offensive Campaign
Building tactics for an offensive campaign
Measuring Risk and Accountability in Offensive Campaigns
Conclusion
Preparing to Lobby for Your Cause
Gaining Access to Congress
Lobbying on the Hill
Employing Effective Tactics
Conclusion
The Workings of the Executive Branch
Pinpointing the Decision Makers
Working with the US Forest Service
Understanding the Logic of the
Executive Branch
Getting the Administration on Your Side
Conclusion
The Role of Media in Wilderness Campaigns
Defining Media
Using the Media Strategically
Getting into the Media
Marketing Wilderness
Conclusion
by Tim Mahoney
I’m an "inside-the-beltway" type, and if I have a complaint about the environmental movement, it’s that it is sometimes not as pragmatic as it needs to be.
I was struck by a quote Lyndon Johnson made when he was the majority leader of the Senate in the late ‘50s and the NAACP was trying to get the very first Civil Rights Bill through. A lobbyist, Clarence Mitchell Jr., came to Johnson with his wish list. Johnson said, "Clarence, you can get anything you want if you’ve got the votes—how many votes you got?"
That’s all we’re going to try to teach you. I revel in that, I think it’s true. I think that might be jarring to some of you; I hope it won’t be by the end of the weekend.
You can pick up some of my "inside-the-beltway" realism, and you can rub some of your "outside-of-beltway" idealism off on me. I have a very strong point of view about this, but I’m not so different from you, and you’re not so different from each other.
We all have one thing in common: we have a common bond that brought us here—a love of wilderness, a love of place.
We love the wilderness so much it is burned in our souls, and most of us screwed up family, friends, and opportunities because of our need to work on this. Or maybe a better way to say it, instead of "screwing it up," is to say that we are more complete, because as well as having family, friends, jobs, and baseball, we have this drive that we all share.
The other odd thing is that while we all have this very same bond, we all came about it uniquely. They told me that I had to talk about myself, and how I came to my bond—and I think the good thing about this is it may remind you during the weekend, as we thrash you for pragmatism and realism, that we all come at it from the same perspective.
Now let me tell you before I start that it’s not easy for a guilt-ridden, Irish Catholic, Red Sox fan, male to talk about feelings—I think I was brought into some of this appreciation for wilderness growing up in New Hampshire with my dad, who walked in the woods and took me with him. He picked mushrooms and identified birds, and plants, and flowers. I became particularly interested in trees.
In 1966, I came across a little book on the trees of New Hampshire. It began with a little piece about the last virgin forest in New Hampshire; one was near the university and one was in a town very close to mine, about 25 miles away. I’d just got my driver’s license so we drove there to see them.
This was a virgin stand of white pine dating from colonial times, and according to this book, there were about one hundred trees left. So we drove to Sutton, New Hampshire, and found our way up the interstate, and found the trees between the interstate and the old road.
They were amazing trees, tall and wide. The only problem was they were all dead. The trees were so much taller than all the trees around them, and between the time the little booklet was printed and the time I had read it, ice storms had come through and knocked the tops off all of them. Not a single, living, virgin white pine remained.
I think that moved me some, in a way that you probably understand better than I can explain.
After graduate school, I was employed in the Western office of the Wilderness Society. It’s amazing how young, ambitious people, with some talent and willingness to do a lot of work for little pay, can rise in the wilderness movement. It wasn’t long before I was put in charge of the Rare II program.
When I came to Washington, D.C., I was asked by Ernie Dickerman to appear at a workshop; I was to talk about wilderness, and Ernie was going to talk about organizing and lobbying. Fortunately, I listened a little bit, and I learned more about lobbying from Ernie that day than I had ever known. I was trying to tell legislators what I knew, and Ernie was suggesting to actually listen to what they were thinking and try to find ways that doing what we wanted could actually help them.
This was a whole different perspective. Without actually admitting at the time that I hadn’t known what I was doing up to that point, I quickly adopted this into my portfolio. I worked on dozens of wilderness campaigns—they all sound very successful and glorious in retrospect—but of course they weren’t.
Some of them were terrifying—in how much pressure can be brought to bear against you (you probably know that), in how terrifying and uphill it can feel from time to time, and in how responsible you feel for it.
In 1987, I became chair of the Alaska coalition to defend the Alaska Wildlife Refuge. There were days, trying to hold together and build the coalition and stall the opposition, when it was very hard to go to work and maintain that cheerful optimism needed to rally the troops.
The problem with defensive campaigns is they aren’t permanent unless you lose. We really need to learn the alternative. We need to work on offensive campaigns and win.
I don’t like the climate in Washington, D.C. But I stayed because I learned how to pass legislation, make a living at it, and protect the land that I so cared about (and do so care about).
You can’t stay away from these defensive fights; they’re always being hoisted on you, particularly when you’re weak or complacent. But each defensive fight and each defeat must be a precursor to a positive campaign.
I think there’s a great glory in fighting defensively, and perhaps hopelessly, against greater forces. But I’d rather be clever, and make some friends, organize some folks, pick up some strategy, and try to control the agenda. Frankly, we’re not going to protect anything we care about permanently unless we can do this.
We put this conference together because we’ve all been on the defensive for a while. Maybe we’ve skipped a generation of people who moved bills.
I must tell you it’s very difficult to move bills—there are a lot of risks. You can lose them, and you can lose wilderness areas in them; you can lose boundaries. And there’s this awesome feeling of responsibility from all of the people who want so very much to save every area that deserves to be saved.
In some ways it’s easier to play glorious defense against some overwhelming force and be defeated because it wasn’t your fault and you fought as hard as you could. But I am here to say that we need to take the responsibility and take the risk to move forward even if there are some casualties.
You are in the company of old pragmatists, organizers, lobbyists, historians, and teachers. And if you don’t think you qualify yet, you will. This is the weekend where we learn that we can get anything we want if we have the votes.
I ask you only to open up your minds (and I’ll try to open up mine) and listen. Be creative. Don’t think about rote or lists. Know there isn’t one way to skin a cat; there are a thousand ways to skin a cat, move the ball, make the sale, or fight the war, or get the votes, or win your true love.
We are not writing a cookbook this weekend; we are learning to cook—to endure every tragedy, every upset that can be thrown at you, to understand how each one works, and to prevail despite all that and make a magnificent contribution.
Over the Memorial Day weekend in 1998, sixty-three people active in (or suffering a tenuous retirement from) wilderness advocacy met at the Rex Ranch in Amado, Arizona, for the first Wilderness Mentoring Conference.
The conference brought together the last generation of "closers," those who know how to take an idea and run with it all the way to the president’s desk, with a new generation of eager, thoughtful wilderness advocates. The younger generation was encouraged to think critically and to identify strategies, tools, and tactics for developing and leading successful wilderness campaigns. The purpose of the conference was not, as our keynote speaker Tim Mahoney said, to write a cookbook, but "to learn how to cook." This book is a record of the lessons from the conference.
Tom Price and Brian O’Donnell thank the staff of the Rex Ranch for their hospitality, kindness, and encouragement: Meredith Nygaard, Patricia Ross, Connie Ann Transue, Wayne Ross, Marcia Olney, Corey Sullivan, and Michael Gilliland.
We offer sincere thanks to our funders:
We’d also like to thank Alan McKnight for his artwork.
And finally, we would like to thank McKinnon-Mulherin for their outstanding efforts in putting this document together.
"The wilderness activists of today cannot hope to succeed in their work without
having a very solid footing in the history—both the philosophical history and the
political history—of wilderness preservation." Douglas Scott
The history of the wilderness movement is the best and most accessible tool for developing and leading successful wilderness campaigns. Unfortunately, it is underused or completely ignored by wilderness advocates. Our history must be learned, remembered, and incorporated into today’s campaigns. Our success depends on our willingness to study the movement’s past efforts, strategies, victories, defeats, and principles.
The history of the wilderness movement can be examined in two contexts:
Reviewing the Philosophical Context
The philosophical foundations of our movement spring from the nature-loving philosophies of Henry Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, George Perkins Marsh, and John Muir. From the 1920s to 1950s, early leaders in the wilderness movement began coalescing those general ideas into a practical philosophy for protecting the wilderness.
Those early leaders¾ including Aldo Leopold, Bob Marshall, Howard Zahniser, and Dave Brower¾ created our concept of federal land management. Their ideas are based on the five critical wilderness philosophies described here:
The younger generation of environmental activists has an obligation to understand the philosophical history of wilderness appreciation and to integrate it in their work. Several books are available on this subject, but the best single source is Roderick Nash’s Wilderness and the American Mind.
Reviewing the Political Context
No one was doing wilderness advocacy work 75 years ago. The older generation of leaders can’t offer a cookbook of foolproof recipes for success in passing legislation to designate additional wilderness areas. To do this work most effectively and efficiently, activists must know the history of strategic choices and tactical maneuvers that got our movement to where it stands now.
We can reach our goals. The trick is to think imaginatively and to move toward an offensive position that sets a wilderness agenda, rather than defend against wilderness encroachment.
The following is a brief outline of significant historical events. It is of note that the pioneers and advocates for wilderness worked effectively in government agencies—the same agencies that we often recognize today as opponents of wilderness.
Although it is important to pioneer new wilderness strategies, we must do so with knowledge of what has come before. We must study the efforts, philosophies, strategies, and humility of the men and women of the early wilderness movement.
Not only do we owe an enormous debt to our forebears for their vision and courage, but the recognition and use of our history will determine our success or failure with future wilderness campaigns. It is foolish, arrogant, and wasteful to believe that our passion about wilderness is original or that the work we are doing now is without precedent.
Lessons Learned from Wilderness Campaigns
"We slowly and surely convinced everyone that we were crazy, and eventually they
agreed and gave us what we wanted." Bart Koehler
This chapter highlights lessons learned from years of successful and unsuccessful wilderness campaigns and lists some strategies for getting your own campaign started. These lessons are not meant to be steadfast rules; rather, you should use these ideas as guidelines when planning your own campaign.
At the end of this chapter, the details of a 10-year campaign, the Tongass Timber Reform Act, are described to provide context for the lessons outlined here.
The sections include the following:
Although every campaign is unique, the following strategies for planning and executing successful campaigns apply in most cases:
An effective campaigner will do some work outside of communities directly involved in wilderness initiatives in an effort to bolster claims and win allies.
To build a thorough campaign, consider the following tips:
As an outsider, you will not have immediate credibility and members of the community may not want to share their opinions and feelings with you. The best way to gather support, build trust, and gain momentum for your initiative is to empower members of the community to make change. Proselytizing will not work in most situations.
To empower the community, apply some of the following strategies:
Your attitude and approach to the campaign will influence its success or failure. Campaigns succeed because of commitment and perseverance. Keep your perspective by doing the following:
Beginning a Successful Campaign
This chapter lists some considerations for starting a successful campaign. While it is unlikely that a single campaign would follow all these steps, use these as guidelines to get your campaign off the ground:
On December 3, 1980, Congress passed Section 705 of ANILCA (Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act) requiring the U.S. Forest Service to produce 450 million board feet from the Tongass National Forest annually. After nearly a decade of rigorous campaigning to protect the forest, the Tongass Timber Reform Act was passed and millions of acres of forest were protected. Since that time, two pulp mills were closed and the contract between two pulp mills and the U.S. Forest Service was nullified.
This section tells the story of the successful, 10-year campaign to protect the Tongass National Forest in Alaska:
Defining the problem goes beyond an environmental analysis. It includes learning about the entire cultural, political, and economic situation.
In 1981, SEACC (Southeast Alaska Conservation Council) began a campaign to save the Tongass National Forest from mandated logging. Early in the campaign, experts in rural organizing visited several small communities and gathered information about local concerns. Based on their conversations, they learned that many people in these small, rural towns loved the forest but hated the pulp mills. From interviews with local residents, they learned the following information:
Based on their knowledge of the feelings and concerns of the local community, SEACC organized a powerful coalition of pulp mill workers, timber companies, organized labor advocates, the NRA (National Rifle Association), international woodworkers, conservation groups, and other dedicated, energized people who shared their cause. Innovation and fun brought more support to the campaign. These allies brought much needed support to the campaign. When 14 communities passed resolutions urging protection of small forest areas, the campaign gained momentum. The campaign team was able to approach members of congress for support, and that eventually forced Alaska’s delegates to support their effort.
The ultimate goal of environmental organizing is to change people’s attitudes toward the environment. The process can be laborious, frustrating, and time-consuming. To succeed, you must externalize your message, empower communities, and maintain perspective during a campaign. The Tongass campaign gives a great example of complete assessment and successful coalition building. In the end, the TTRA passed in the senate 99-0.
Offensive and Defensive Campaigns
"Every liability, if you think creatively, is an asset." Mike Matz
All wilderness campaigns combine aggressive and protective tactics, but passing a bill generally calls for a more offensive approach, while stopping a bill generally calls for a defensive approach. In an offensive campaign, you call the shots rather than just defend against them. This chapter gives an overview of both approaches and describes effective offensive campaign tactics:
Defining Offensive and Defensive Campaigns
While you need both a good offense and a good defense to win, you obviously can’t "score," or pass a bill, unless you are in offensive mode. You can only protect yourself from someone else’s initiative. If you are in offensive mode, you keep your opponents from having the chance to attack you.
Defensive and offensive campaigns often have different tones:
A defensive campaign builds a sense of threat. For example, you might tell supporters, "This mining company is coming in here. It is going to destroy this mountain." The mountain has no protection. A threat becomes a motivation to campaign for legislative action. You don’t, of course, always get everything you are after in a defensive campaign. For example, protection might amount to an oil company having to temporarily halt, rather than stop, drilling.
While defensive campaigns can be necessary and important, defense alone will not give you a win because your opponent will be setting the agenda and controlling the substance of the campaign. It may be easier tactically to defend, but it is harder psychologically. You are the victim, not the actor. You are responding to an agenda.
Some pros and cons of a defensive campaign are described below.
Pros of a defensive campaign
Cons of a defensive campaign
What is an offensive campaign?
An offensive campaign is an action campaign. You set the agenda for what you want to achieve. Offensive campaigns require creativity, an agenda, and a timeline, as well as extensive, up-front planning. You have to state what you value and create a plan for it, instead of just reacting to someone else’s plan. You are defining the objectives that will drive your campaign. Therefore, your depth of understanding must be greater. A good example of an offensive campaign is lobbying for full protection for land that already has partial protection.
Some pros and cons of an offensive campaign are described below.
Pros of an offensive campaign
Cons of an offensive campaign
Moving from a Defensive Campaign to an Offensive Campaign
Wilderness advocates need to be well versed in both defensive and offensive tactics. You are always working both offense and defense, and you must choose your offensive and defensive battles wisely. Obviously, it is much easier to rally around a threat and be defensive than it is to take the offense. Therefore, the ability to build an offensive strategy and apply it as often as possible is a powerful skill.
In a defensive campaign, the threat you are defending against prioritizes your actions. Sometimes it is hard to see how you can move in an offensive direction when so many things seem to demand a defensive reaction. Here are some questions you might ask:
Building tactics for an offensive campaign
Here are some effective tactics you can use to build an offensive campaign:
Make your moves count
One method for shifting gears from defensive to offensive is to turn your opponent’s campaign into a positive launching pad for your offensive campaign. For example, an initiative to eradicate wolves could be answered by a campaign to reintroduce wolves to a wilderness area.
A classic example of moving from a defensive to an offensive campaign is the campaign that was behind the Utah Wilderness bill, where campaigners started by fighting to protect areas from development and then proposed a new 5.7 acres of wilderness.
Attaching latch strings to your proposed wilderness area is an effective strategy. For example, within an entire proposed wilderness area, you may not get it all marked as designated wilderness the first time. Instead, you can work to provide areas that do not receive full protection with some protection, and re-approach those areas later.
Turn liabilities into assets
When in defensive mode, you have to guard against every liability; in offensive mode, you can use liabilities as assets. Your losses can be opportunities if you think creatively. For example, if a company destroys a mountain, maybe you can get the local people angry enough about it to help you with your next initiative. Maybe you can use it for leverage with a Congressperson: "We were disappointed on that one. Now help us with this new initiative."
Build an offense based on your defensive tactics
Help your supporters understand that a successful defensive campaign does not necessarily mean that an area is protected. For example, the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge is very much threatened by oil companies, but it’s hard to rally public support because people hear the word "refuge" and believe that the area is safe. This ignorance makes it much harder to sustain support for ongoing defensive measures.
On the other hand, a good defensive effort can help your offensive campaign by keeping your allies aware of your small victories and building momentum for progressive action. For example, the designation of the Utah Grand Staircase-Escalante was not a complete victory, but it was a morale booster.
Make and keep allies—and know your opponents
A successful wilderness advocate knows how to find future allies and work with opponents:
Set clear objectives
To stay on course and reach your goals, you must map your campaign against clear objectives.
Be creative
Creativity can help you get bills passed. For example, it’s harder to rally support for damaged areas than for pristine areas—even though the former may be extremely valuable. Maybe it’s a unique ecosystem, or a rare species of bird lives there. If you can figure out a way to make these things important to people, you can gain their support.
Creativity can also help keep your supporters invigorated and focused. The more fun and tolerable you can make a campaign, the less chance of burnout there is.
Be consistent
There is a benefit in going back to Washington with the same bill, year after year. Frequency enables you to build relationships, work with the same activist base, show your commitment, and stress the importance of your cause. This isn’t easy, but this is how it goes.
Measuring Risk and Accountability in Offensive Campaigns
Remember that you will be judged on your assessment of risk, but if you don’t take risks, nothing happens. A defensive campaign is usually black and white, whereas an offensive campaign has shades of gray. In other words, with an offensive move, you might take the risk of choosing which areas to protect and which to give up.
A good offensive player analyzes risks and sets priorities. During that process, it is sometimes hard to meld your idealism and pragmatism. Here are some things to do and consider:
It’s sometimes hard to face the fact that you will be judged and held accountable for the hard choices you have to make. Despite hard choices, you still have to take chances. For example, no one ever thought at the outset that the Tongass initiative would be a success.
When deciding on an offensive or defensive approach, remember that each campaign is unique. There is no exact formula you can follow, and although you can learn from each campaign and apply its lessons to future campaigns, you must always do up-front planning and careful analysis for each initiative.
Relying on rhetoric and current convictions alone to make a choice about a defensive or an offensive approach can be dangerous. Instead, use careful strategizing to make intelligent choices and, when necessary, revise and strengthen your discourse and opinions.
In this world of wilderness advocacy, you have to be proud that you put an idea into action and saw it through until the end. You have to remember that small victories can build momentum.
"Respect, honesty, and courtesy will carry you far in lobbying. Lobbying succeeds
through trust." Ernie Dickerman
The workings of Congress are complex. If you don’t know its intricacies and rules, you will not be a successful lobbyist. This chapter offers suggestions for effective lobbying:
Preparing to Lobby for Your Cause
Successful lobbyists are well prepared. There are many things to consider and plan before you state your case to a member of Congress. It is not enough to understand your issue. You must research what motivates Congress and use that knowledge to help your campaign. The way to bend Congress to your will is to understand its priorities, not just your own.
Here are some points to consider and things to do as you prepare to lobby:
You gain access to Congress by being prepared and understanding the correct protocol. It is, for example, essential that you develop a good relationship with congressional staff members. If you don’t, you will never get through to any member of Congress.
Lobbying is about information: who has it, who understands it, who knows best how to present and use it, and who makes a decision based on it. You need to know who fills each of these roles before you lobby for your cause. Lobbying is a fine art. Here are some things to remember before you try it:
In addition to understanding the motivations of congressional members and following the best procedures for lobbying, you also have to use effective tactics to get the attention of Congress.
Keep in mind that the policies and procedures involved in passing legislation are complex and time-consuming. Filibusters, vetoes, inertia, and basically any determined opponent can hold up progress. Therefore, to get legislation passed, you must use your time wisely, apply pressure in the correct places, and target the right people.
Here are some effective lobbying techniques:
"The agencies don’t always make sense, and they’re difficult to work with, but sometimes, if you’re patient and you persevere, you can get through." Cindy Shogan
To get legislation passed, you need support in both the legislative and executive branches. Therefore, you need to be familiar with each branch.
This chapter explains the divisions of the executive branch and offers tips for working with government agencies to pass legislation:
Pinpointing the Decision Makers
The Department of Interior is the primary agency responsible for making legislative decisions about wilderness issues. When trying to influence any agency, be sure to send your ideas up the chain of command. If you are not certain about who is in charge of what, ask. You also should talk to a mentor—someone who has dealt with each of these departments.
The two agencies of the Department of the Interior that make decisions on wilderness and public land are the following:
These two executive branches influence decisions:
Working with the US Forest Service
The Forest Service is a very hierarchical organization. To gather support there, consider the following strategies:
Understanding the Logic of the Executive Branch
Before you lobby the administration, do some research. Make certain you know its structure, policies, and procedures. Below are some facts and tips for understanding and working with the executive branch:
Getting the Administration on Your Side
In order to get the administration to support your cause, you first need to know its workings. The following hypothetical steps describe the process the administration follows to take a position on an environmental initiative:
You cannot lobby effectively if you don’t understand the structure and workings of the executive branch and the best and most expedient ways to work within it. You should know the chain of command to so you can follow the rules, policies, and procedures of the executive branch and all agencies associated with it.
The Role of Media in Wilderness Campaigns
Media play an important and necessary role in a wilderness campaign. Indiscriminate use of media can harm your campaign; careful and strategic use can aid it. The latter cannot be accomplished without careful analysis.
This chapter offers suggestions, cautions, and statistics to help you decide on the best ways to use media to bolster your campaigns:
Media are agencies of mass communication such as newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and the Internet. These agencies offer many tools for wilderness advocates such as press releases, editorials, advertisements, and articles. There are two types of media:
| How North Americans use media (from Enough is Enough) | |
| Identify television as their main source of news | 65% |
| Think television is the most believable news source | 49% |
| Own televisions | 98% |
| Read newspapers | 63% |
| Listen to radio at work | 53% |
| Listen to radio in the morning | 66% |
| Listen to radio in their car | 77% |
In addition to the above statistics, note that there is a combined readership of 62.6 million people for 16,000 daily newspapers.
Using the media can be an expensive and very public venture. As a result, you have to approach the media in a strategic and careful manner. If you don’t, publicity of any sort can harm, rather than help, your campaign. Remember, you don’t have to talk to media if you are not ready, or if it’s not in your best interest to do so. Here are some tips for using media to help your campaign:
One big part of being media savvy is knowing not only where to place your message, but how to get it placed.
When you are learning to cook up a campaign, media are an essential utensil. In addition to using media strategically, you need to know how to market your cause effectively once there. Think of wilderness as a product that needs to be marketed. Many companies use wilderness to sell their products, but no one is marketing wilderness as a product. Here are some things you can do to market wilderness:
The media give you a powerful and necessary tool for wilderness advocacy.
Learn to be savvy, inventive, and creative with media. Be prepared to present yourself and your cause in a positive manner. Develop relationships with reporters and use your best lobbying skills to get them on your side. Track, save, and create a portfolio of your media pieces. Always be on the lookout for clever ways to market wilderness.
Doug Scott, Friday Harbor, Washington
A summer job near the Cascade Mountains sparked Doug’s interest in the park service. In 1966, Doug received a forestry degree from the University of Michigan and began working as a grassroots activist for The Wilderness Society (TWS) and the Sierra Club. From 1970 to 1973, Doug worked as a full-time lobbyist for TWS where he learned about grassroots-based legislative strategy from some of the greatest wilderness strategists. Doug’s accomplishments include his role in the successful campaign to stop federal funding for supersonic transport, his work for the National Interest Lands Amendment to the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, and his contribution to the Eastern Wilderness Areas Act.
In 1973, Doug served as Northwest Representative for the Sierra Club where he helped develop the Endangered American Wilderness Act signed by President Carter.
From 1978 to 1980, Doug served as Lobbying Coordinator for the Alaska Coalition in the great drive for the Alaska National Interest Lands Act. From there, he was transferred to the Sierra Club headquarters in San Francisco for a decade of leadership roles in the Club's conservation staff. In 1990, Doug resigned as Associate Executive Director of the Sierra Club to move to San Juan Island. In 1991, Doug became Executive Director of the Friends of the San Juans, a local environmental advocacy group. He currently serves on the Conservation Committee of REI and on the board of People for Puget Sound.
Ernie Dickerman, Buffalo Gap, Virginia
Leaving Buffalo Gap at the age of 23, Ernie went to Knoxville where he took a position with the TVA. After 35 years, Ernie joined the Conservation Committee of the Smoky Mountains Hiking Club and became close friends with Wilderness Society founder Harvey Broome. In 1966, he joined the TWS staff where he helped successfully defeat the proposed highway through wilderness in the Great Smoky Mountains Park and urged citizens to protect lands under the new Wilderness Act of 1964.
In 1976, Ernie moved to a mountain farm near Buffalo Gap where he served as President of the Virginia Wilderness Committee (VWC). Ernie led the effort to pass the Virginia Wilderness Act in 1984, and he contributed to the success of several subsequent wilderness and conservation laws for the state. Today, Ernie is an active member of the VWC and is currently working on a proposal to protect and preserve numerous roadless areas. Ernie is recognized as a leading activist in Virginia in the effort to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Bart Koehler, Juneau, Alaska
Bart’s career began in 1973 as an employee of The Wilderness Society (TWS) in Denver. In 1974, Bart became TWS’s Wyoming field representative and directed the Wyoming Outdoor Council. For two years, Bart worked on several individual wilderness proposals, the Wyoming RARE II process, the Endangered American Wilderness Bill, and the Alaska Lands Act.
In 1980, Bart co-founded "Earth First!" with Dave Foreman and, simultaneously, continued to work with the Nevada and Wyoming Wilderness Associations. His accomplishments include spearheading the Wyoming Wilderness Act of 1984.
As Executive Director of the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council from 1984 to 1991, and from 1995 to present, Bart introduced and worked on the successful Tongass Timber Reform Act in 1990 and helped defend 17 bills by the Alaska delegation to roll it back. In addition, he has served as Associate Program Director for the Greater Yellowstone Coalition and worked on the Montana wilderness bill, the Gallatin Range Consolidation, and the Porcupine Valley LWCF purchase. In 1990, Bart received the Olaus Murie Award from the Alaska Conservation Fund for the defense of Alaska's wildlands.
Jay W. Nelson, Juneau, Alaska
Born and raised in Billings, Montana, Jay attended graduate school in Arizona and then moved to Alaska in 1973. From 1983 to 1984, Jay worked as the Director of the Alaska Environmental Lobby in Juneau. In 1987, he lobbied for the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council, and in 1994, he lobbied for the Alaska Marine Conservation Council on reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Fisheries Conservation and Management Act. Jay has also helped the USFWS in Alaska with marine birds, whales, and sea otters and worked seasonally as a road engineer for the U.S. Forest Service in Oregon, Montana, and Alaska. His political work includes five years in the Alaska legislature as senior committee staff for the greenest chairman of the Alaska legislature.
Since 1994, Jay has worked as a special assistant in the Department of Fish and Game and is now the Governor's special assistant for fisheries and wildlife.
Russell Shay, Washington D.C.
The Sierra Club hired Russell in 1976 to edit a newsletter on off-road vehicles. At the same time, Russell began working on BLM planning and wilderness inventory in the California Desert and, in 1977, he went to Washington D.C. In 1979, Russell was named Public Lands Coordinator for Northern California where he was responsible for coordinating work on California RARE II wilderness legislation.
In 1985, Rep. John Seiberling (D-OH) hired Russell for the majority staff of the House Public Lands Subcommittee. Russell drafted numerous wilderness bills and helped organize hearings, including work on below-cost timber sales. In 1987, Russell went to work for Rep. Gerry Studds (D-MA) as staff for the Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee. He was responsible for wildlife refuges and related matters. At that time, Russell acted as the point person for the successful fight against the development of Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
In 1988, Russell worked for Senator Timothy E. Wirth (D-CO) drafting wilderness legislation and changing the timber program in the Tongass National Forest. He led a successful Senate floor fight to stop development of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge; drafted, negotiated, and passed a Colorado Wilderness Bill with Senator Hank
Brown (R-CO); and worked on numerous other environmental, energy, natural resources, pollution, and Indian affairs issues.
Russell’s most recent accomplishment was helping The Greater Yellowstone Coalition win a $60 million appropriation to purchase the New World Mine site.
Brooks B. Yeager, Wheaton, MD
Brooks has been involved in numerous conservation battles for over twenty years. Today, Brooks is the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy and International Affairs at the Interior Department. Before going into the Administration, Brooks ran the National Audubon Society's lobbying effort in Washington. During the Reagan Administration, he represented the Sierra Club on several energy and public lands issues.
Brooks accomplishments include fighting to protect the Bisti Badlands, stopping Watt's coal leasing program, blocking oil and gas development in the Yellowstone ecosystem, reforming the oil and gas leasing law to better protect roadless areas, stopping DOE from targeting Canyonlands for HLW disposal, instigating the restoration of the Everglades, and, helping to protect the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
He has also been involved in many non-wilderness efforts, including campaigns to strengthen the Endangered Species Act, to encourage international agreement to a climate convention, and to protect tigers and rhinos against the threat of extinction from poaching.
Maggie Fox, Boulder, Colorado
Maggie is a Senior Regional Representative, a 14 year regional representative veteran of Sierra Club Southwest Office, and a lawyer and policy analyst. She has worked closely on numerous wilderness bills that are now law in New' Mexico (San Juan Wilderness Protection Act, El Malpais); in Arizona on both Forest Service and BLM bills; in Utah for its 5.7(+) Utah BLM wilderness effort; and in Colorado, for wilderness, wild, and scenic legislation (1993 Colorado Wilderness Act and the Cache La Poudre Wild and Scenic).
She has also lent her efforts to current proposals for a wilderness designation for Spanish Peaks, to an expanded bill for the Arapahoe-Roosevelt National Forest, and to the Citizents proposal for Colorado BLM wilderness. Maggie also consulted on Wyoming wilderness and several other proposed wild and scenic bills (a few of which are now law) and did general consulting on the water rights language and other technical aspects of several other western wilderness bills.
Maggie attended Northwestern School of Law, Lewis and Clark College, in Portland, Ore. While in law school, she worked for the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, the Native American Project of Oregon Legal Services Corp. and did a year long externship with the Native American Rights Fund in Boulder, Colorado. She also worked for the NWF's Rocky Mountain Legal Clinic at the University of Colorado, focusing on oil and gas leasing on USFS and BLM lands.
Patrick Higgins, Arcata, California
Patrick Higgins is a consulting fisheries biologist from Arcata, California, who specializes in salmon and steelhead restoration. Pat has written extensively about protection of northwestern California salmon stocks and has helped to craft numerous watershed restoration plans. He has given slide presentations to thousands of people on salmon conservation and has also produced an hour long documentary, Last Chance for the Pacific Salmon
For the last four years, Pat has been helping to develop a comprehensive fish and water quality database and geographic information system (GIS) for the Klamath River Basin called the Klamath Resource Information System (KRIS). KRIS is a custom program developed for IBM-type computers that allows easy integration and access to data, charts, photographs, bibliographic resources and maps. KRIS is currently being distributed on CD and, since the program is custom-made, it requires no acquisition of software. The program is designed to be user update-able and users can easily cut and paste any charts, photos or map displays in KRIS into reports or letters.
Steve Kallick, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania nds)
Steve was the Alaska Rainforest Campaign, campaign director from 1993 to 1996, during which time he coordinated the campaign to end Tongass 50-year logging contracts, reform forest planning in Tongass. He also coordinated a successful defensive effort to stop 17 separate legislative proposals in the 104th Congress to increase logging in Tongass.
Presently, he is a program for the Pew Charitable Trusts.
Lenny Kohm, Boone, North Carolina
Lenny has photographed the Gwich 'in people since 1986 while on a photo assignment to the village of Old Crow, Yukon Territory. The Gwich 'in of northern Alaska, Yukon and the North West Territories were faced with the proposed oil development of the Arctic coastal plain in Alaska, the calving grounds for the caribou herd upon which their culture and their lives depended..
In 1987 he arrived back in California and visited Sierra Club headquarters with an offer to fight the Arctic drilling legislation by showing a slide show he had developed. Lenny began traveling and meeting folks, and has never stopped.
He has brought Gwich 'in from Alaska and Canada to appear with him on the road show and to speak to representatives in Washington D.C.
Mike Matz, Salt Lake City, Utah
After graduating from Carleton in 1982 with a B.A. in History, Mike moved to Fairbanks, Alaska, where he volunteered with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Northern Alaska Environmental Center, and the Alaska Environmental Lobby in various capacities. His professional environmental career began in 1984 when the Northern Center hired him as associate director, and in 1986 the Sierra Club hired him as its associate field representative in its Anchorage office. In both jobs a major focus was implementation of the newly passed Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act.
After a year in Anchorage, the Sierra Club asked if Mike would be interested in a six-month stint in Washington, D.C., to lobby Congress against the drilling proposal. Eventually, the Sierra Club hired him as one of its Washington directors of public lands. In 1989, he succeeded Tim Mahoney as chair of the Alaska Coalition. In 1989-90, he worked to secure passage of the oil spill reform and contingency legislation in the wake of the Exxon Valdez disaster. In 1991, he worked to defeat energy legislation that would have opened the Arctic Refuge coastal plain to oil and gas leasing and development and in 1993 he and others formed the Alaska Wilderness League.
In September of 1993 he became executive director of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, a position he holds today.
John McComb, Arlington, Virginia
John joined the Sierra Club in 1962. He was involved in conservation during the fight over dams in the Grand Canyon while a graduate student at the University of Arizona. At that time, John was asked by David Brower to testify before the House Interior Committee, then chaired by Wayne Aspinall and Mo Udall
John was hired by the Sierra Club in late 1969 as their Southwest Field Representative. In 1977, he moved to Washington, D.C .to work for the Sierra Club primarily on public lands. John was deeply involved the FLPMA and the Alaska lands legislation. Eventually, John became Director of the Washington Office of the Sierra Club and later on Conservation Director.
John left the Sierra Club in 1986 to seek new challenges. He worked briefly for The Wilderness Society, and became a computer consultant with clients primarily in the environmental and political community. John worked for three years in Cambridge, England for the World Conservation Monitoring Centre, where he managed a project to produce a book of information, published in 1992, Global Biodiversity - Status of the Earth's Living Resources
Debbie Sease, Washington, D. C.
Debbie Sease is the Legislative Director for the Sierra Club, and is responsible for coordinating the Sierra Club's legislative and administrative campaigns and managing the 30 staff members in its Washington office. She has been a conservation professional in Washington, D.C. since 1978, and has been with the Sierra Club since 1980. Prior to being appointed Legislative Director, she directed the Sierra Club's public lands protection programs and coordinated their efforts on a variety of wilderness and park protection measures, including the decade-long campaign which led to enactment of the California Desert Protection Act in 1994.
Ms. Sease was involved in numerous other successful wilderness campaigns, including: San Juan Basin Wilderness Act, the El Malpais wilderness, national monument and conservation area in New Mexico, the Aravaipa national conservation area in Arizona, the Arizona Desert Wilderness Act the Arizona Strip Wilderness Act, the Nevada Wilderness Act, and additions to the Ventana Wilderness in California. Wild and Scenic River campaigns include: the Rio Grande in Texas, the Chama in New Mexico, the Merced in California.
Ms. Sease has also played a major role in ongoing campaigns to reform forestry, mining and grazing policies on public lands. Prior to coming to the Sierra Club, Ms. Sease worked for The Wilderness Society.
Ms. Sease grew up in New Mexico, and before moving to Washington, D.C., managed a nonprofit educational wilderness trip program in the Southwest. She served for six years on the board of directors of American Rivers, and currently serves on the board of directors of the League of Conservation Voters.
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