We Defend the West
Defending Wildlands | Protecting Wildlife | Safeguarding Climate
The Western Environmental Law Center uses the power of the law to safeguard the public lands, wildlife, and communities of the American West in the face of a changing climate. We envision a thriving, resilient West, abundant with protected public lands and wildlife, powered by clean energy, and defended by communities rooted in an ethic of conservation.
We Defend the West
Defending Wildlands | Protecting Wildlife | Safeguarding Climate
The Western Environmental Law Center uses the power of the law to safeguard the public lands, wildlife, and communities of the American West in the face of a changing climate. We envision a thriving, resilient West, abundant with protected public lands and wildlife, powered by clean energy, and defended by communities rooted in an ethic of conservation.
We Defend the West
Defending Wildlands
Protecting Wildlife
Safeguarding Climate
The Western Environmental Law Center uses the power of the law to safeguard the public lands, wildlife, and communities of the American West in the face of a changing climate. We envision a thriving, resilient West, abundant with protected public lands and wildlife, powered by clean energy, and defended by communities rooted in an ethic of conservation.
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EXPLORE WAYS TO GIVE
Defending Wildlands
The American West is defined by its natural heritage of wildlands, rivers, forests, and wildlife. Since its inception, WELC has worked hard to preserve and restore these unique characteristics.
Protecting Wildlife
The American West depends on its iconic wildlife. WELC protects native animals while preserving and restoring the healthy, functioning natural ecosystems they call home.
Safeguarding Climate
Our world is warming, with dire consequences to the American West’s communities, lands, rivers, and wildlife. But, as the saying goes, in every crisis lies opportunity.
Stamping out “accidental” grizzly deaths
People sometimes shoot threatened grizzly bears, confusing them for black bears. Bear baiting stations frequently result in these tragic and most often lethal cases of mistaken identity. We’re working to prevent these unnecessary and unacceptable incidents. Learn more here.
Lawsuit targets feds’ failure to consider Colorado fracking’s climate harm
Conservation groups sued the Trump administration today to require an analysis of the climate risk from an oil and gas extraction plan covering nearly a million acres of public lands and minerals in western Colorado. The area surrounds the Bureau of Land Management’s...
Clean water advocates seek federal court order to force EPA to fix WA water pollution cleanup program
Declaring a key Clean Water Act program in Washington state broken, clean water advocates asked a federal court—in a second lawsuit this week—to order the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to fix a program to restore polluted rivers, streams, and Puget Sound....
Clean water advocates ask court to reopen lawsuit to clean up WA’s polluted waters
Nearly three decades after first suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over its failure to clean up Washington’s polluted waters, environmental groups returned to federal court to enforce the Clean Water Act. In the groups’ request to reopen a lawsuit...
Extinction’s Opposing Counsel
Wildlife attorney Matt Bishop has dedicated his career to fighting extinction. He focuses on predators – keystone species whose importance to ecosystem health can’t be overstated. Likewise, Matt’s success in defending those species has had an outsized impact across the West. Matt’s fellow WELC attorney Laura King wrote a profile on Matt, offering a look inside our Montana office and what drives extinction’s opposing counsel. MORE>>
