Defend New Mexico's Public Lands From Fracking!

Under a proposal out for comment right now, up to 97% of all public lands in the Carlsbad Field Office of New Mexico would be opened to fracking. Tell the Bureau of Land Management to protect our public lands!

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The Official Action Center of WildEarth Guardians

A Voice for the Voiceless

WildEarth Guardians can only build power and cultivate change with your help. Speak up today for wildlife, wild places, wild rivers, and a safe climate we can all cherish.

Save the Forest Service's Legacy Roads and Trails Program

The assault on public lands continues as Congress eliminates funding for proven restoration programs like the Forest Service’s Legacy Roads and Trails program, which has always enjoyed wide-ranging support. Before the budgets are “reconciled”, we have a tiny window to speak up for our values. Send an email today!

Add Your Voice

End the War on Wildlife

The federal government spent your tax dollars to kill almost 1.6 million native animals last year. Tell Congress enough is enough.

Send a Letter

Protect Our Western Public Lands From Fracking

The American West is facing an unprecedented assault from the oil and gas industry and their cronies in the Trump Administration. Send a letter today and help us turn the tide against fossil fuels.

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Keep Our Coal in the Ground, Save Our Climate

The Trump Administration wants to re-approve four massive coal leases in the Powder River Basin, the nation’s largest coal producing region. Confronting coal in the Powder River Basin is critical for our climate. Speak out against coal leasing and climate denial under Trump!

Add Your Voice

Shut Down the San Juan Coal Mine

Speak out today and tell the Interior Department to start helping communities and workers, not blindly rubberstamp more coal mining that won’t happen!

Add Your Voice

Stop Sen. Mike Lee's Public Lands Giveaway

Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) has announced that he will introduce legislation to give away national public lands to the states. Speak out today—tell your senators to oppose Sen. Lee’s legislation!

Add Your Voice

Take Action: Greater Chaco Faces New Fracking Threats

WildEarth Guardians just learned the U.S. Bureau of Land Management is planning to auction away tens of thousands of acres of the Greater Chaco region for fracking. Speak out today. #FrackOffChaco!

Send a Letter

Protect Pollinators from Poisons

Pollinators are key to healthy, vibrant ecosystems. Tell Congress to reject this attack on common sense protections for species essential to our food supply and ecosystems.

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Protect Our Public Lands, Turn the Tide Against Fracking

An estimated 120,000 miles of oil and gas pipelines on American public lands are illegally going uninspected, putting our health, our safety, our climate, and more at risk. This has to stop. Sign the petition today calling for legally required inspections and for restraint.

Sign our Petition

Protect Colorado's Carnivores

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More Mexican Wolves in the Wild!

Act today to demand the release of more adult wolves. For the sake of the wild population and for the sake of wolves currently detained in captivity, set more lobos free!

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Defend the Endangered Species Act

The Endangered Species Act is our country’s most essential environmental law protecting plants and animals. Yet some members of Congress want to weaken the law and clear a path for industry to mine, log, and drill away our natural heritage.

Add Your Voice

It's Time for Real Energy Independence

Tri-State Generation and Transmission provides power to 43 co-ops in Colorado, Nebraska, New Mexico, and Wyoming. If you’re a member of a Tri-State co-op, now is your chance to demand clean and affordable renewable energy.

Sign the Petition

Protect Rio Grande Flows

The Bureau of Land Management hasn’t made sure the Wild & Scenic Rio Grande is protected. Ask Senator Udall to secure funding for the river.

Add Your Voice

Safeguard Sage Grouse

The ironically titled “Greater Sage Grouse Protection and Recovery Act” would gut federal protections for sage grouse and cut science and the public out of determining their fate.

Send an email

Protect Gray Wolves

The so-called “Sportsmen’s Bill” would pave the way for “recreational” slaughtering of Great Lakes wolves. Tell your Senators to vote no on this atrocity.

Sign our Letter

Defend Nevada's Ruby Mountains From Fracking

The Forest Service is considering opening up 54,000 acres of public lands to oil and gas leasing. Speak out today to defend the Ruby Mountains and all of Nevada from fracking.

Send an Email

End the Taxpayer Funded War on Wildlife

For far too long our federal government has used our hard-earned tax dollars to slaughter native wildlife on our public lands. Tell your representatives this all-out war on wildlife and public safety must stop today.

Send a Letter

Support Anti-Trapping Legislation

Lend your voice to the “Limiting Inhumane Federal Trapping (LIFT) for Public Safety Act” (H.R. 5954), which will ban almost all trapping on our public lands, including prohibiting federal employees from using inhumane and indiscriminate “body-gripping” traps to kill our precious wildlife.

Send an email

Stop Military Overflights in Greater Gila

Holloman Air Force Base near Alamogordo, New Mexico, is proposing to expand its airspace over the Gila and Aldo Leopold Wilderness Areas and other portions of the Gila National Forest. We don’t need supersonic jets disturbing our wildlife.

Sign the Petition

Make Public Lands Cruelty-free

Trapping, poisoning, and aerial gunning (shooting animals from small airplanes or helicopters) are still rampant across our public lands. Help us put an end to the cruelty and danger.

Sign the Petition

Why Guardians?

Contact

[email protected]
406-209-9545

Kelly Nokes, J.D.

Transparency Staff Attorney

Kelly Nokes joined WildEarth Guardians as Carnivore Advocate in June 2015 and became Guardians' Transparency Staff Attorney in September 2017. She holds a J.D. and Masters of Environmental Law and Policy from Vermont Law School and a B.S. in Environmental Conservation and Outdoor Recreation Leadership & Management from Northern Michigan University. She is a barred attorney in the State of Montana. Kelly has been an active advocate for wild creatures and wild places throughout her career. She previously served as a legal intern with Western Environmental Law Center and Trustees for Alaska and came to the Guardians with a strong background in environmental education and program administration from her prior work with Columbia Riverkeeper and the Columbia Gorge Ecology Institute. An avid mountain biker and trail runner, Kelly can often be found on the trails exploring Montana's beautiful mountain landscape when not in the office.

Bill Syme

Member, Board of Directors

Bill joined the board in 2009. He is the only board member who is a native New Mexican and brings this unique perspective to the deliberations of the board. His love of nature began early in his life with frequent trips to New Mexico and southern Colorado forests and streams, backpacking and fly-fishing with his family. Voyages to the Gila and Pecos made a lasting impression on young Bill leading to the desire to preserve wilderness areas in as pristine a state as possible. He went to college at Stanford university, majoring in biology and chemistry. While there he became involved in outdoor biological research. One summer was spent just outside Yosemite studying chipmunks. The next year he was involved in the student lead Mono Lake study evaluating the effects of water diversions by Los Angeles on the ecology of the lake. The results of this study are still in evidence today with the maintenance of water levels in the lake high enough to preserve the breeding islands of gulls. Currently he works as a general surgeon in Albuquerque, in private practice since 1990 but also involved in teaching residents and medical students from UNM. He continues to have a love for the outdoors and spends time outside hiking, cycling, backpacking, bird watching,skiing,gardening and fly-fishing.

Peter Schoenburg

Member, Board of Directors

Peter is a partner in the Albuquerque law offices of Rothstein, Donatelli, Hughes, Dahlstrom, Schoenburg & Bienvenu, LLP. He has practiced criminal defense law in New Mexico since 1978. He received his undergraduate degree at Yale College and his law degree at Rutgers School of Law. A former Federal and State Public Defender, as well as an Assistant Attorney General, since 1993 Peter has worked in private practice defending complex criminal cases in both Federal and State courts. He also regularly represents Native Americans charged with illegal possession of feathers in connection with their religious practices. He has been continuously listed in The Best Lawyers in America - Criminal Defense since 1994. Peter’s love of the wilderness and commitment to its preservation began in his child-hood years in upstate New York. Beginning in law school he worked as an instructor at the Hurricane Island Outward Bound School in Maine and the, now defunct, Southwest Outward Bound School based in Santa Fe. He is an avid rafter, hiker, skier and cyclist.

Kristina Martinez

Member, Board of Directors

Kristina Martinez was born and raised in beautiful Santa Fe, New Mexico. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology from the University of Arizona and a Juris Doctor degree from the University of New Mexico. Ms. Martinez has practiced law in Santa Fe since 2006. She focuses her practice in the areas of civil rights, general civil litigation, and family law. Kristina serves on the Ethics & Campaign Review Board for the City of Santa Fe as well as the boards of the St. Michael’s High School Foundation and Cooking with Kids. She loves the Santa Fe community and the American Southwest and strives to help preserve and enrich both by serving on the WildEarth Guardians’ board, which she joined in 2015.

Nat Cobb

Member, Board of Directors

Nat Cobb joined the Guardians Board in 2010. He grew exploring the outdoor environments in New Mexico, Colorado, and Pakistan. In the 1970’s he worked for five different Outward Bound schools in diverse environments, including three years directing programs in the Gila Wilderness. He also worked as a river guide on the Grand Canyon and in Dinosaur National Monument. A graduate of Fort Lewis College and Harvard Medical School, he recently retired from the Indian Health Service and the Centers for Disease Control, where his work included Family Practice, Emergency Medicine, Research and Epidemiology. He still loves to explore mountains, rivers and deserts by boat, ski, foot, and bicycle. He and his wife actively support and partner with several local farmers in farm-to-table, farm-to-beer mug, and farm-to-wineglass projects. At home on the bank of the Rio Grande in Los Ranchos, NM, he dabbles in native plant landscaping and tries to co-exist with the coyote, geese, beaver, and sandhill cranes who live in his back yard.

Anne Butterfield

Member, Board of Directors

Anne Butterfield, of Boulder CO. After early years spent in a range of of outdoor environments in the east and west, Anne developed a passion for high altitude. Soon after graduating from Occidental College, she grew through expert skiing, Colorado Outward Bound School, search and rescue work, and serving an archeological surveyor for the US Forest Service in New Mexico. Anne then co-managed Adventure 16 in West LA, a 10,000 square-foot outdoor retail store. Returning to Colorado, she completed a Masters in Creative Writing at CU Boulder and served with Colorado’s 20th Judicial District Attorney’s Office as a victim advocate. Then, for seven years she served as an editorial adviser and opinion columnist at the Boulder Daily Camera, where her writing explored Colorado energy policy and informed Boulder voters through three elections leading to the city's decision to separate legally from Xcel Energy. She comes to Guardians also having served on the board of Clean Energy Action, a non-profit dedicated to educating elected officials, regulators, and the public on the risks of our nation relying so heavily on the faltering coal industry. She is an avid pet & wildlife lover and a big fan of renewable energy having learned so much from her husband Sandy who spent his career in wind energy particularly at the National Renewable Energy Laboratories.

Glen Colton

Treasurer, Board of Directors

Glen and his wife have lived in Fort Collins, Colorado since 1979. They have one daughter. Glen has been active in the community for many years, serving on numerous boards and commissions involved with community planning, the environment, open spaces, natural resources, sustainability, and economic health. He has been especially active in population and growth issues at the local, state, and national level. For many years, he wrote a bi-monthly business column for the Fort Collins Coloradoan, focusing on providing an alternative view to the pro-growth bias dominant in the media. Glen worked at Hewlett Packard and Agilent Technologies in Finance and retired in 2001. He graduated from Wartburg College in Iowa in 1978 with a degree in Accounting and Economics. While growing up in Iowa he developed a passion for the outdoors hiking, fishing, camping, canoeing, and hunting. He also was a three-sport athlete in high school and college, playing football, wrestling, and track. While Glen believes in taking individual action to help achieve sustainability, and protect the environment and wildlife, he believes it is equally important to stabilize population and move our economy to a “steady state” economy not dependent on economic and population growth. When he’s not working on sustainability issues, Glen enjoys fly fishing, biking, hiking, downhill and cross country skiing, gardening, and just being in the outdoors.

Cathy Bailey

Secretary, Board of Directors

Cathy works with young people to connect them with wild places. She is an outdoor and environmental educator of distinction. Cathy has her BA from the University of Texas at Austin, her MA from the University of Texas El Paso, and environmental educator training from the National Outdoor Leadership School. For over 25 years she has been a classroom teacher. Presently, as a science teacher at Albuquerque’s Bosque School, she has built and implemented curriculum based on the landscape at hand. Her students participate in citizen science programs where their research informs habitat management. Each year she spends weeks leading students into wilderness. Cathy has also worked extensively as a lay leader within the Episcopal Diocese of the Rio Grande with youth programs, capital fundraising, and social justice and inclusivity issues. For Cathy, the inseparable goals of a healthy environment and healthy human community are central to her life’s calling. At home in Albuquerque, Cathy’s family, her pair of running dogs, a flock of chickens, a much loved garden, the Sandia Wilderness and the Rio Grande keep her connected to that which matters.

David Will

Vice President, Board of Directors

David was born and raised in the rural Catskill Mountains of Upstate New York. Prior to attending college, David spent summers traveling the United States to study the geology of National Parks during summer field study trips led by his father, an adjunct professor of geology for a local college. His passion for protected spaces and wilderness led him to earn a B.S. in Natural Resources and a M.P.A with an emphasis in public lands protection from Cornell University. During summers between college semesters, David worked as a Park Ranger Naturalist at Rocky Mountain and Grand Teton National Parks, where he shared his passion for natural history with countless visitors exploring Rocky Mountain landscapes. After completing graduate school, David worked for the National Parks Conservation Association and The Wilderness Society before becoming a partner in an education consulting firm. David lives in Durango, Colorado where he finds peace in the mountains and forests of the San Juan Mountains.

Mimsi Milton

President, Board of Directors

Mimsi spent three glorious summers as a teenager at a camp in Estes Park and became hooked on the West. Years later, after many western vacations, she and her husband moved their family to Denver, where they didn't know a soul, and were “home” from day one. Mimsi has a B.A. in English Literature from the University of Wisconsin. As a journalist, she worked with Wolf Blitzer on a national, Middle East newsletter and with Martin Agronsky on his nightly, live PBS show. She was a staff writer for Parent and Child Magazine and The Baltimore Jewish Times and a freelancer for The Washington Post and other publications. Mimsi was Associate Director of Development for the D.C. Sidwell Friends School and Associate Director of Development and Alumni Affairs for the Kent Denver School in Englewood, Colorado. Following that she owned and operated a gallery of international crafts. Mimsi spends summers in Frisco hiking, biking, gardening, painting and expanding her repertoire of vegan recipes. She serves on the board of CO-Force (Coloradans for Fair Rates and Clean Energy), a non-profit that promotes renewable energy and works to end the use of fossil fuels.

The Official Action Center of WildEarth Guardians

A Voice for the Voiceless

WildEarth Guardians protects and restores the wildlife, wild places, wild rivers, and health of the American West.

Contact

Kelly Nokes, J.D.

Transparency Staff Attorney

Bill Syme

Member, Board of Directors

Peter Schoenburg

Member, Board of Directors

Kristina Martinez

Member, Board of Directors

Nat Cobb

Member, Board of Directors

Anne Butterfield

Member, Board of Directors

Glen Colton

Treasurer, Board of Directors

Cathy Bailey

Secretary, Board of Directors

David Will

Vice President, Board of Directors

Mimsi Milton

President, Board of Directors