A Year of Opportunity 2 FRIENDS of The Art of Wilderness 3 Sage Grouse Campaign 4 NEVADA Boots on the Ground 6 A Fence Free Sheldon 8 INSIDE WILDERNESS 2013 Award Winners 11 SPRING/SUMMER 2014 WWW.NEVADAWILDERNESS.ORG Y EARS OF K EEPING N EVADA W ILD Friends30 of Nevada Wilderness Celebrates Thirty Years! elcome to a special year for Nevada. Not only does Nevada celebrate its sesquicentennial, the 150th anniversary of Wstatehood, but Friends of Nevada Wilderness celebrates its own 30th anniversary of the organization. While we celebrate these special events, the nation joins in celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the Wilderness Act, an important piece of legislation critical to the creation of Nevada’s own wilderness areas. Anniversaries are the perfect opportunity to regroup and reflect - to celebrate how far we’ve come and our accomplishments throughout the years but also look at what’s next. It’s also a time to honor all of those who have worked so hard in making Friends of Nevada Wilderness a viable, trusted organization in the state that Friends of Nevada Wilderness hit their 30th Anniversary due to the hard work works closely with all four public land of their volunteers, activists, and members throughout the years! PHOTO: KURT KUZNICKI Continued on Page 8 HIGHLIGHTS OF THE PAST 30 YEARS 1984 1985-1989 1987 Nevada wilderness MITH Project Nevada Wilderness Watch, a Con- Friends rally activists, with a grant S gressional & media tour utilizing motor community and COTT from the Toiyabe S homes and business support Chapter of the Sierra helicopters for the Club, form Friends of results in the establishment Nevada Wilderness, an first national of Great Basin organization dedicated recognition National Park K to informing the public about the grandeur, of Nevada’s URT in White Pine K resources, and vulnerability of Nevada’s wild wilderness UZNIC County. lands with Jean Ford as their first Executive qualities. K I Director. Continued on Page 2 2 FRIENDS OF NEVADA WILDERNESS OUR MISSION Friends of Nevada Wilderness FRONTLINES is dedicated to preserving all qualified Nevada public lands By Shaaron Netherton / Executive Director hands. as wilderness, protecting all love spring! How much does wild Nevada mean present and potential wilderness from ongoing threats, educating Spring to you? How much do your public lands the public about the values of — Ienergizes matter to you? Reach into your heart and and need for — wilderness, and me and gives ask how you would feel if you lost these improving the management and me hope. I’m lands because you didn’t speak up. There restoration of wild lands. so proud of are too many horrible examples of the the efforts our majority staying silent when atrocities FRIENDS OF members have occur. Let’s not let our public lands be NEVADA WILDERNESS put forth to make sacrificed because we stayed silent. Box 9754, Reno, NV 89507 a difference As we celebrate the 50th anniversary (775) 324-7667 and there are of the Wilderness Act, talk to your family, so many great friends, and neighbors and write letters to Shaaron Netherton opportunities this year to celebrate 50 years elected officials and to the newspapers - Executive Director of Wilderness. let them know that Nevada’s public lands [email protected] We have several bills in Congress and wilderness Kurt Kuznicki to protect places like the Pine Forest are important to Associate Director [email protected] Range, Burbank Canyons, Wovoka and you. Help build many, many more deserving areas. There the next generation Pat Bruce are a host of opportunities to get into of people who Stewardship Program Director [email protected] wild Nevada on wilderness stewardship care, who will be Jose Witt projects or just wilderness celebration the champions of Southern Nevada Manager events. wilderness and [email protected] Why is Nevada such a great place to wildlife for the Renee Aldrich live and visit? Because we collectively own next 50 years. Help Stewardship Program Mgr. so much of it. Our public lands are ours. keep Nevada wild! [email protected] Our wilderness areas are ours. Unlike Remember Jesy Simons many other states, we don’t have “no the words of Dr. So. Nevada Technician [email protected] trespassing” signs everywhere. We can Seuss and the Lorax – “UNLESS someone camp and recreate to our hearts’ content like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is Darcy Shepard Director of Finance and HR because each and every American owns going to get better. It’s not.” [email protected] these lands and has a voice in how they are Join the Friends of Nevada Wilderness Katie Sanchez managed. community this year; come out on projects, Membership Coordinator While there is much to celebrate, take the family camping, breathe the air, [email protected] there is also a dark and disturbing trend watch the stars, feel the pull of the wild, Kirk Peterson that frightens me. I see a small but vocal, and become inspired or re-inspired from Inventory Coordinator dangerous, and emboldened minority the beauty and solitude around you. Sing [email protected] who want to roll back the last 50 years of Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Jake Kastner In-House GIS/Cartographer progress on the environment, who want Land”. [email protected] to take the law and the land into their own With inspiration comes action. Shevawn Von Tobel 1990 Outreach Manager 1989 Friends help pass the Red Rock [email protected] Friends 1989 Canyon National Conservation Act publishes Friends’ hard work leads to (83,000 acres). Exploring the passage of the BOARD OF DIRECTORS Nevada’s Wild Nevada Wilder- Roger Scholl, State Chair Places: A Guide ness Protection Follow us! Hermi Hiatt, Southern Vice-Chair to Exploring Act, designating 13 [email protected] Karen Boeger, Rural Vice-Chair www.nevadawilderness.org Wilderness. new wilderness ar- Larry Dwyer, Treasurer eas (733,400 acres), nevadawild.blogspot.com Meghan Wolf, Secretary www.facebook.com/ Roberta Moore including Mt. Rose nevada.wilderness Bart Patterson and Mt. Charleston. John Hiatt Marge Sill Continued on Page 3 FRIENDS OF NEVADA WILDERNESS 3 BECOME AN ARTIST-ADVOCATE The Art of Wilderness ilderness provides many benefits - pristine wildlife Whabitat, clean air and water, solitude, and respite from our urban environments. One benefit we normally don’t consider is a permanent source for inspiration. Wild unconstrained places are the last vestiges of America in which artists can turn to for what Ansel Adams dubbed the “non-materialistic experience”. Artists and writers like Ansel Adams, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Terry Tempest Williams, and so many others who cherished this experience wilderness can provide, realized that art too can play a pivotal role in the Submit your wilderness photo or piece of art today to be featured in our Artown “50 Years of Wild environmental movement to inspire Nevada” exhibit or in our Wild Nevada 2015 calendar. PHOTO: BRIAN BEFFORT activism. In order for the general public to even begin to appreciate Call for Artown Submissions: Call for Calendar Submissions: Nevada’s soaring landscapes and Initial submission: Low or high Initial submission: Low or high abundant wildlife, they need to resolution images of your work (all resolution images. Selected photos: first see it in order to even believe mediums). Maximum submission is At least 14 inches wide at 300dpi that they’re something worth three. (unedited RAW format preferred). fighting for. During the 50th Anniversary of All work on display will be for sale Friends will proudly credit, market, the Wilderness Act, we’re asking (20% of proceeds donated to Friends). and provide contact information Nevada artists to use their art to For applications and details, visit for all photographers, provide express their own appreciation www.nevadawilderness.org/artown. complimentary copies of the for wilderness and to inform a Winner of the exhibit will be awarded calendar, and provide a receipt (the more general public as to the awe- Friends’ Virtual Artist in Residency value of your time, miles and image inspiring moments of nature. for the 2014-2015 year. donation can be tax-deductible). The generosity and vision of your art will inspire generations to [email protected] Submit: [email protected] come. call (775) 324-7667 for details. or call (775) 324-7667 for details. 1993 1998 1991-1998 Draft map work by Friends Marge Sill, founding Friends’ volunteers conduct helps expand Red Rock 1996 member of Friends of citizen inventory to identify Canyon NCA to 195,000 acres. Friends works to Nevada Wilderness, is lands with wilderness continually keep awarded “Conservation- characteristics. the public and ist of the Year” at the Congress engaged High Desert Conference.. by advocating for qualified wild lands through- out Nevada. Kurt Kuznicki Continued on Page 4 4 FRIENDS OF NEVADA WILDERNESS Kim Toulouse Mike Sevon The Desatoya Wilderness Study Area (pictured left) is just one of several Wilderness Study Areas under consideration for designated wilderness in the sage-grouse campaign. Sage-Grouse Campaign Turns into Reality ne little bird has been creating cooperation of Senator Heller and the Fish & Wildlife Service, the BLM, quite the stir across the Senator Reid on what we’re dubbing Forest Service and citizen inventories, OWest lately and wilderness the “sage-grouse” bill, it looks like we have identified the largest wild- designation has been part of the this crisis has offered yet another lands with high-density sage-grouse conversation here in Nevada. In opportunity: bipartisanship, where habitat in some of the last remaining, 2015, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife will both parties are working together to unfragmented country in Nevada. be making a decision on whether or find a Nevada-based solution.