From its roots as a scrappy,
garage-band-style environmental group, the Paonia, Colorado-based
Center for Native Ecosystems has become a voice for the kind of
endangered species often overlooked by other conservation groups.
The center has championed such unlikely species as Graham’s
penstemon, a wildflower threatened by oil and gas development, the
boreal toad and the pocket gopher. “Many people think of pandas and
whales when they think of endangered species,” says staff biologist
Erin Robertson. “We point out the animals and plants in peril right
here in our own backyards.”
Spawned over beers on a back
porch in Boulder in May 1999, the center’s goal is to fill
what its organizers see as a major gap in endangered species
advocacy in the West. Executive director Jacob Smith recalls,
“It’s been a wild ride. We first drafted our bylaws on a
napkin. Now we have offices in western Colorado and the Front
Range, two full-time employees, and a whole host of volunteers.”
Right now, the center is putting pressure on the Colorado
Wildlife Commission to restore the lynx in southern Colorado,
trying to protect the Preble’s mouse from Front Range
development, and pressuring the federal government to list the
white-tailed prairie dog as endangered. The group’s tactics
range from grassroots organizing with local activists and other
conservation groups, to filing lawsuits against the state and
federal government.
“There’s something morally
wrong about knowingly wiping an entire species from the earth,”
says Smith. “It’s within our power to do better.” For more
information about CNE, see www.nativeecosystems.org.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Looking out for the little guys.
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