Northwest Office

Key constituents include resource professionals, academics, landowners, policy makers, foundations and private businesses.

Key Projects/Programs:

Climate Change: Defenders Northwest office staff work with state agencies and other partners to improve planning for wildlife adaptation to climate change and habitat connectivity.

State Wildlife Action Plans: Defenders works closely with fish and wildlife agencies and other partners to implement State Wildlife Action Plans, especially in Oregon and Washington, and with a particular focus on climate change adaptation.

Legislative Action: Defenders addresses the impacts of climate change by creating a policy framework for integrated inventory and monitoring of natural resources, and by implementing the Oregon Conservation Strategy to develop a network of conservation lands.

Ecosystem Markets: Defenders supports the creation of multi-credit ecosystem marketplaces to conserve fish and wildlife habitat, improve water quality, and find more effective ways to restore ecosystems.

Marketplace for Nature: Defenders staff are helping to establish voluntary markets for ecological resources that are not currently regulated, with an emphasis on priority habitats at risk. Partnerships with diverse groups of resource professionals and market leaders create a unique new model for conserving priority fish, wildlife, and habitat.

Conservation Registry: Defenders' Conservation Registry is a simple and attractive database and web site that displays conservation projects across the landscape. Users include land trusts, land owners, resource agencies, funders—anyone planning, working, or concerned with on-the-ground conservation and restoration projects.

Oregon Habitat Joint Venture: Defenders’ Northwest Office provides office space and support for the Oregon Habitat Joint Venture, a cooperative effort involving resource agencies and conservation groups working to protect important wildlife habitat.

Willamette Partnership: As a member of the Willamette Partnership, Defenders is working to create a multi-credit  Ecosystem Marketplace. The marketplace is a system that will direct private funding to high priority conservation areas by tapping funds currently spent on ineffective mitigation projects, and combining them with other funds to conserve larger parcels and important ecological processes.

Key Accomplishments:

Initiated and passed SB 513 in Oregon, a bill that encourages and enables state agencies to use markets for ecosystem services to help achieve state conservation goals (2009).

Successfully promoted legislation strengthening Oregon's land use laws to do a better job addressing habitats at risk (2009).

Co-chaired the Fish and Wildlife Adaptation Subcommittee of the Oregon Global Warming Commission and helped develop the state's wildlife adaptation strategy.

Helped develop guidance for all fish and wildlife agencies in the U.S. to help them address climate change in revised wildlife action plans.

Launched a nationwide effort in 2006 to expand local land trusts involvement in biodiversity conservation efforts (2006 to present).

Created the Conservation Registry – a database and web site that will track the location and type of conservation projects across the country (2006 – present).

Helped establish the Willamette Ecosystem Marketplace, a new, market-based approach to land, water and wildlife conservation in Oregon (2005 – present).

Proposed a comprehensive monitoring framework and voluntary conservation tools for state wildlife action plans and work with partners to implement it (2004 – present).

Initiated and supported legislation that improved the effectiveness of Oregon state programs for voluntary conservation (2003).

Initiated and supported legislation in Washington State that established a biodiversity policy for the state and led to the creation of a Biodiversity Council (2001).

Initiated and supported sustainability legislation in Oregon that addressed the conservation of natural areas, fish and wildlife habitat and created the Institute for Natural Resources (2001).

Initiated a successful effort to have Oregon participate in the federal Forest Legacy Program, including the development of the state’s Assessment of Need, which was approved by the Secretary of Agriculture (2001).

Initiated, lobbied and passed legislation in Oregon that improved incentive programs in Oregon (2001).

Published Thinning, Fire and Forest Restoration: A Science-Based Approach for National Forests in the Interior Northwest (2000).

Secured protection for almost 23,000 acres of endangered shrub steppe habitat in the Columbia Basin through negotiated settlement with the State of Oregon, agribusiness interests and environmental litigants (2000).

Created and maintained Biodiversity Partners web site as an important and heavily used site covering a range of biodiversity conservation and management topics (1999 – present). ).

Helped establish a dedicated source of conservation funding (through the lottery, Measure 66) in Oregon that has generated more than $300 million for state investments in habitat conservation and watershed improvements (1998).

Played a leading role nationally in focusing attention on the need to expand and improve incentives for habitat conservation for private landowners (1994 – present).

Published Saving Nature’s Legacy: Protecting and Restoring Biodiversity (1994).

Spearheaded the Oregon Biodiversity Project, a collaborative biodiversity assessment that produced one of the nation’s first statewide conservation strategies and provided a model for the state wildlife action plans completed nationwide in 2005 (1993 – 1999).

Published Landscape Linkages and Biodiversity with Island Press (1991). ).

Supported federal funding for the Gap Analysis Program that identified important, unprotected habitats in all fifty states (1988- 1998).

Helped launch the “Watchable Wildlife” Program that led to the publication of wildlife viewing guides in most states, and the designation of over 1000 wildlife viewing sites, signed with binoculars (1988).

Halted the use of strychnine for above ground uses (1986).

Successfully challenged President Reagan’s proposal to re-register Compound 1080, an extremely toxic wildlife poison (1980-81).

Initiated and passed legislation establishing the second nongame wildlife checkoff on Oregon’s tax form (1979).