WWP petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list the rare slickspot peppergrass, threatened by livestock grazing, under the Endangered Species Act. The Service declined, and in 2008 WWP filed suit and won a ruling that compelled the agency to go back and issue a new decision, this time based on the best available science. As a result, the rare plant ultimately got “threatened species” protections.

In 2009, we won a ruling that the “not warranted” Endangered Species Act determination for greater sage grouse had been tainted by political tampering, and setting that bird on track for a new determination (issued in 2010, “warranted” for listing but “precluded” by other priorities). This set the stage for West-wide sage grouse habitat conservation planning, and elevated the greater sage grouse to a national conservation priority.

Our litigation to end harmful livestock grazing in Sonoran Desert National Monument began in 2008, when we sued to compel the Bureau of Land Management to mange livestock grazing, found to be harmful by the Monument’s own managers, in ways that protect the Monument and its natural features. A 2010 settlement compelled a new management plan, which closed half the Monument to commercial livestock. Efforts to win continued reforms are ongoing.

In 2012, WWP led litigation to halt domestic sheep grazing on the Payette National Forest that was threatening the struggling bighorn sheep population with deadly livestock diseases. We won a landmark ruling, later upheld by the federal circuit court, that required the Forest Service to close the allotments and pay close attention to the “risk of contact” posed by authorizing disease-riddled domestic sheep close to bighorn sheep habitats.

WWP has undertaken a longstanding campaign to shut down the USDA’s Sheep Eexperiment Station, a facility dedicated to promoting research to support sheep ranching in the West. In 2017 we won a restraining order closing its Snakey and Kelly Canyon pastures to domestic sheep in order to protect grizzly bears and bighorn herds, and in 2021, a separate ruling struck down the management plan for the Sheep Station and shut down its livestock operations on all but a tiny fraction of its grazing allotments.

WWP has a long and successful tradition of litigating in defense of large carnivores, often targeted for extinction by the livestock industry. When the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service removed Endangered Species Act protections from the Yellowstone grizzly bear population, WWP sued and won those protections back, protecting the bears from sport hunting and hostile state management plans. WWP litigation forced an end to a wolf and coyote predator killing contest in Salmon, Idaho, and a broader lawsuit against USDA Wildlife Services in Idaho yielded a 2020 settlement that stopped M-44 ‘cyanide bomb’ use across Idaho, and blocked the agency from killing wolves in designated wilderness, in the Sawtooth National Recreation Area, and in the Wood River Valley.

Their long list, and I do mean long list, of litigation that they have filed since December of 2008 can be found on their website by looking for the items under the heading:  Legal Efforts

WWP is pretty good at double talk.  See the following statement from their website:  "As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change pointed out in a 2021 report, “technology-based measures that are effective for climate change mitigation can pose serious threats to biodiversity.” On a practical level, this translates to an urgent need for renewable energy project siting that does not exacerbate the biodiversity and extinction crisis.

The least destructive locations for renewable energy projects are in the already built environment near the locations where the power will be used, such as solar panels on rooftops and parking lots. Producing renewable energy at homes and businesses also reduces the demand for environmentally destructive transmission lines across vast areas of public land."

Solar panels on rooftops, eh?  Well, if it is solar panels on rooftops that WWP wants then they are talking about alternative power generation.  So, what to do with the excess power generated or with power generated from those solar panels when "homes and businesses" want to function at night by using that solar panel generated electricity instead of relying on candles?  That happens when you store that electrical energy made during the day in some fashion so that it can be reclaimed at night time when the sun doesn't shine.  The only way to do that is to use some form of ESU, Energy Storage Unit.  At the present time one of the most prevalent ESU types of device is the lithium battery type of ESU.  Sure, other technologies will possibly take over the bulk of the stationary ESU device market as time goes on, but right now it is lithium that is needed for these devices and when the new technology does decrease the use of lithium then that new technology will still require mining to obtain the metals and chemicals for whatever the future holds in the area of ESU.

So in the same breath that WWP proclaims its worship of solar panels and solar energy it goes on to vilify the mining industry as witnessed by the following quote, again from its website:  

"Mining

Open-pit mines cause permanent damage to public lands. They blow up mountains, obliterate wildlife habitat, consume and contaminate groundwater, and often cause acid mine drainage into waterways, killing aquatic wildlife. Some mines require treatment to clean up water contamination for hundreds of years if not forever after mining is completed. Underground mines can also cause harm wildlife on public lands by depleting aquifers, causing acid mine drainage, and bringing human disturbance and noise into remote areas.

Mines do so much damage to public lands and wildlife that there is no such thing as a “green” mine, not even when its products will be used to further the transition away from fossil fuels, such as lithium for electric car batteries. Therefore, it is important that new mining be reduced as much as possible. The U.S. can do that by:

• Increasing reuse and recycling of lithium batteries
• Redesigning batteries to use less lithium and other minerals
• Ramping up investment and research on alternatives to lithium and other minerals used to transition away from fossil fuels
• Greatly increasing public transit and energy conservation
• Reforming the General Mining Law of 1872 so that it protects wildlife and habitat"

Funny how WWP talks about the importance of lithium and lithium recycling but attacks the very process of lithium extraction that is necessary in order to provide that lithium in the first place.

WWP is not without controversy or criticism.  One such critical source, although obviously biased against WWP, is a group of ranchers at "Protect the Harvest.com" as evidenced by the article linked below:

https://protecttheharvest.com/what-you-need-to-know/overview-of-environmental-ngos/western-watersheds-project/

Here we go again.

Okiedo