WCV names new executive director
(WCV Press Release: Tuesday, May 12, 2009)

Wyoming Conservation Voters and the Wyoming Conservation Voters Education Fund are proud to announce Kate M. Wright of Cheyenne as the organizations' new executive director.

Wright, 51, a former communications director for the Wyoming Trial Lawyers Association and regional coordinator for MoveOn.org, was chosen after an extensive national search. She took over the groups on May 11, succeeding Jason Marsden, the organizations' founding director since 2001.

"I am honored to continue Wyoming Conservation Voters' outstanding work to build productive working relationships with elected officials that push forward protections for Wyoming's wildlife and landscapes," Wright said. "Conservation has always ben a way of life for me, and I want to be a part of the solution."

Marsden will remain on-board as a transition advisor through June 30. "Kate is a tremendous choice to lead WCV and WCVEF," he said. "Her listening, communication and organizational skills will serve the conservation community extremely well."

Judge won't dismiss grazing challenge
(Casper Star-Tribune: Tuesday, May 12, 2009)

BOISE, Idaho — A judge has refused to dismiss and break apart a sweeping lawsuit accusing federal land managers of giving livestock grazing and energy development priority over protecting sage grouse habitat across millions of acres of public land in six western states.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge B. Linn Winmill marks an initial victory for the Idaho-based Western Watershed Project in a lawsuit against the Bureau of Land management. The conservation group is challenging 18 BLM land use plans covering more than 25 million acres in Idaho, Wyoming, Nevada, Utah, Montana and northern California.

In a lawsuit filed last year in Boise, the group accused the agency of violating environmental laws and its own policies in the management plans. Specifically, the lawsuit claims that at the direction of the Bush administration, federal managers failed to consider a no-grazing option and or the cumulative effects of grazing and climate change on sage grouse and its dwindling habitat ...
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