 The Aspen Wilderness Workshop (as it was then called) was founded in 1967 with two goals: securing congressional designation for the Hunter-Fryingpan and Collegiate Peaks Wilderness Areas, and doubling the acreage designated within the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness Area. These goals were accomplished with the passage of the 1978 Endangered American Wilderness Act and the 1980 Colorado Wilderness Act. AWW, and in particular co-founders and "Maroon Belles" Connie Harvey, Joy Caudill and Dottie Fox, played a pivotal role in bringing about these pieces of legislation, which together secured nearly a half-million acres of wilderness in the White River National Forest. Since the mid-1980s, our focus has broadened from advocating for new wilderness to defending the ecological integrity of the entire greater WRNF area. To acknowledge this evolution, in 2003 we dropped the word “Aspen” from our name, and in 2004 moved our main office to Carbondale. In four decades, the Wilderness Workshop has earned a national reputation for passionate advocacy, grassroots effectiveness and scientific authority. In addition to securing the wilderness areas so many residents and visitors now enjoy, WW has accomplished the following: - Coordinated a Citizen’s Management Alternative that greatly strengthened ecological protections in the current White River National Forest Plan and resulted in a Forest Service recommendation for an additional 82,000 acres of wilderness.
- Conducted citizen inventories of the WRNF's roadless areas that found approximately 500,000 acres of roadless lands the Forest Service had failed to properly include in its inventory.
- Co-led an effort to organize citizens throughout the WRNF region to speak out in favor of protecting the WRNF's roadless 670,000 acres during the State Roadless Task Force hearing process, with comments 97% in favor of protection, including the additional 500,000 acres citizens inventoried.
- Intervened to scale back various proposed actions on the WRNF, ranging from the “Flintstones” toilet at Maroon Lake to the Baylor Park timber sale near Sunlight Peak.
- With the Snowmass-Capitol Creek Caucus, won a pivotal Colorado Supreme Court case that established a compromise instream flow regimen for Snowmass Creek to protect it from excessive diversions for snowmaking.
- In partnership with the Aspen/Sopris Ranger District, maintained a long-running air, water, campsite, and weed monitoring program in the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness.
- Acted as a leading voice in persuading local counties and municipalities to publicly oppose the Forest Service’s “fee demo” program (a pilot program that authorizes the agency to charge visitors fees to use their own public lands) and the Healthy Forests Restoration Act (which uses “forest health” as a pretext for encouraging logging and weakening public input on proposals).
- Led an effort to educate Western Slope local officials on reducing the risk of wildfire to their communities, and enlisted their support to argue for thinning near populated areas rather than logging of remote backcountry.
- Coordinated the Roaring Fork Watershed Biological Inventory, a baseline inventory of threatened and imperiled species and natural communities in the Roaring Fork Watershed.
For a 40th-anniversary feature on WW's history, including an illustrated historical timeline, see the November 2007 newsletter.
Bonus historical material: |