Current work in wildlife, rivers, public lands, and climate

SILVER CITY, N.M. — On Saturday, June 1, WildEarth Guardians staff and board will be in attendance at the Gila Wilderness Centennial Celebration in Silver City, New Mexico to showcase and honor our organization’s decades of conservation work in the Greater Gila region.

At the event, WildEarth Guardians will showcase over 100,000 actions our organization has taken to ensure protections for the Greater Gila and its outstanding wildlife. These actions include:

• Gathering over 100,000 petition signatures and public comments advocating for Greater Gila protection;
• Publishing the anthology First & Wildest: The Gila Wilderness at 100 with Torrey House Press and editor Elizabeth Hightower Allen;
• Achieving Outstanding National Resource Waters (ONRW) designations to permanently protect water quality in all perennial and intermittent waters in the Gila Wilderness;
• Securing the first voluntary waiver of a grazing permit, removing cattle from 28,000 acres of Forest Service land, and promoting and supporting grazing permit retirement to reduce livestock impacts on public lands;
• Challenging and pausing mining activities that threaten endangered species in the region;
• Releasing a 20 minute micro-documentary No Fools Gold with filmmaker Claire Haughey, telling the fascinating story of the Greater Gila and the people who fight for its protection;
• Leading efforts to expand the range of the Mexican gray wolf, advocating for the release of more wild wolves, and limiting their killing and removal, including passing legislation that bans the use of traps and snares on New Mexico public lands;
• Winning legal battles to protect the Mexican spotted owl and its critical habitat; and
• Securing protections for other threatened and endangered species found in the Greater Gila including the Chiricahua leopard frog, Southwestern willow flycatcher, Gila Trout, and Spikedace.

Members of the press are invited to visit WildEarth Guardians’ table at Gough Park to speak with WildEarth Guardians staff and learn more about our ongoing efforts to protect the wildlife, habitat, water, and cultural resources of the Gila Wilderness and surrounding wild, yet unprotected, landscape of the Greater Gila region.

Event details:

Gila Wilderness Centennial Celebration 

Saturday June 1, 2024, 10am-5pm MDT

Gough Park, 1201 N Pope St, Silver City, New Mexico  

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