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The annual auction-fundraiser for Conservation Northwest, held Wednesday night, drew a take of more than $121,000 - a slight increase over 2007 and not bad for recession times.
The Bellingham-based green group, skilled at image-making, unveiled its latest near-sounding name for a place it wants to preserve -- the "Columbia Highlands."
Conservation Northwest has focused on the Kettle Range in northeast Washington, hoping a big chunk of the Colville National Forest can be preserved as wilderness. Such wildlands would provide an important wildlife corridor between the Cascades and the interior ranges of British Colubmia.
Negotiations with a leading timber producer, Vaagen Bros. of Colville, have produced a visionary plan for divying up federal lands in the region.
Still, "Kettle Range" is a nondescript name for a sparsely populated corner of America to which you are seeking to attract attention.
Hence, the term "Columbia Highlands" has been coined, with the claim that it is home to "nearly the full suite of animals that Lewis and Clark found here more than 200 years ago."
Lewis and Clark did travel down the Columbia River, but more than 130 miles south of the mountains and forests proposed for preservation.
Nomenclature has played a major role in the Northwest's preservation and land use battles of the past two decades.
Old-growth trees on national forest land became "ancient forests" as conservation groups sought to halt the first Bush administration from clearcutting public lands. Up north, the coastal fjords and river valleys of British Columbia became the "Great Bear Rainforest."
Conservation Northwest cut its teeth a decade ago in a drive that raised money to ransom 25,000 unlogged acres in Okanogan County from clearcuts planned by the state Department of Natural Resources.
The area acquired a name, the "Loomis Forest," and a symbol -- the endangered lynx. A subsequent, successful effort to buy up private land along the Interstate 90 corridor became the "Cascade Conservation Partnership." Use of the initials "CCP," carrying a reminder of the Soviet Union, was discouraged.
Both sides play the game, of course.
A fabled summer swimming hole for Bellingham kids was Toad Lake, named for its big frog population. A real estate developer got hold of the place and renamed it Emerald Lake."
Oil companies and the Bush administration refuse to use the full name of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, instead referring to it by initials as "ANWR." The acronym leaves out mention of animals or refuge, convenient for those who want to erect drilling rigs, build pipelines and install hauling roads.
What's the best case of conservationist nomenclature?
"Ancient forests" is a prime candidate. So is "Wild Salmon," which denotes fish struggling upstream, and creates a polar opposite to the "Farmed Salmon" found in smelly floating pens in Vancouver Island inlets.
have lrefuge
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Posted by scarletngrayngreen at 6/12/08 7:52 p.m.
Because it's concise, catchy, and clearly captures the negative connotation desired: acid rain. It also manages in just two words to summarize a complex industrial air pollution issue in a way that makes listeners or readers immediately think: "that's gotta be bad."