SANTA FE, N.M.—Forest Guardians of Santa Fe and Sinapu of Boulder, Colo., have joined forces to create WildEarth Guardians, which organizers say will be in a better position to pressure government agencies to protect and restore lands, wildlife and water.
WildEarth Guardians will do much of the same work the two organizations did in the past, but also will increase its focus in some areas.
“We’ve created a bigger, bolder and better organization to achieve our goals to restore wolves across the West, protect iconic western rivers such as the Rio Grande and keep wild places like the Sagebrush Sea intact,” said John Horning, who headed Forest Guardians and is now executive director of WildEarth Guardians.
The two groups have collaborated in the past two years, and agreed to merge a year ago. Forest Guardians was founded in 1989 to save old growth forests in northern New Mexico. Sinapu was founded in 1990 to protect and restore native carnivores in the Southern Rockies.
The priorities of WildEarth Guardians are to restore wolves to the West, including protecting Mexican gray wolves in the Gila area of southwestern New Mexico and reintroducing wolves to the Southern Rockies; protecting the Rio Grande from its headwaters in Colorado to the Gulf of Mexico; restoring species such as prairie dogs across the West; restoring wildfire as a natural process in healthy western forest ecosystems; abolishing the wildlife killing program of Wildlife Services; and inspiring residents of the West to become a cohesive voice to protect nature.
The organization has 18 staff members and a budget of nearly $1.5 million. It has offices in Denver, Boulder, Santa Fe and Phoenix.
The merger also integrates Forest Guardians’ Sagebrush Sea Campaign, which is aimed at protecting and restoring the West’s sagebrush-steppe landscape, into WildEarth Guardians. Part of the campaign will concentrate on trying to get Endangered Species Act protection for the greater sage-grouse, Columbian sharp-tailed grouse and Gunnison sage-grouse.
The new group’s climate and energy program will promote renewable energy and energy efficiency.
“Unless we do more to bring about a shift away from dirty energy and towards clean, renewable energy and efficiency, the climate crisis is going to have a devastating effect on the wild places, wildlife and wild rivers of the American West,” said Robert Ukeiley, climate and energy program director.
