Bundy Lawless Grazing and Bulldozing of Virgin River
Nevada BLM Director Ruhs and BLM Director Kornze fail to act. Severe impacts to rare fish in the Virgin River, and desert tortoise habitat in the uplands… WLD responds. Read what Katie Fite had to say to BLM about what she found when monitoring Nevada’s... read moreFrom The Field: Public Lands Grazing In Cave Valley
... read moreArgenta Settlement Agreement Threatens Sage Grouse Habitat
Below is the settlement that sets up the elite cabal that is making decisions affecting crucial sage-grouse habitats, including the first of a raft of projects WLD and WHE appealed. Fences kill sage-grouse. Although it claims BLM still is in charge, the reality is the... read moreArgenta: Ranchers denied the drought while collecting drought subsidies
Katie Fite of the environmental group WildLands Defense said the range around Battle Mountain is “devastated and needs significant rest” from the ranchers’ activities. “They truly think they are the lords of yesteryear and the public lands are their own little... read more[Letter from Nevada] | The Great Republican Land Heist by Christopher Ketcham
“[I]n the spring the new shoots on the sage, iridescent, light, and soft, bow in the wind and what that creates on the landscape is an evocation of the wind on the sea. And when the wind blows at dusk after the rain, there’s the sweetest smell.”. .
Harper's Magazine
Natalie Ertz
Executive Director
Inspired by a howl with the late Phantom Hill Wolf Pack of central Idaho, Natalie Ertz has been tracking and monitoring wolves in the central Idaho backcountry for over six years.
During much of that time, Natalie served and learned from Lynne Stone of the Boulder-White Cloud Council providing oversight of the federal and state MANagement of wolves.
Natalie’s passion for wolves and public landscapes is inspired by a deep appreciation for the wild, an appreciation borne on-the-ground.
Brian Ertz
Board President
Brian Ertz is Natalie Ertz’s brother. Brian is in his final year of law school, currently serves as the Chair of the Sierra Club’s National Grazing Team, Conservation Chair of the Sawtooth Group of the Sierra Club and previously spent 7 years as Media Director for Western Watersheds Project. Since that time Brian has consulted a variety of public interest environmental nonprofits on administrative, policy, and media advocacy.
Katie Fite
Board Secretary
Katie Fite brings over 30 years of on-the-ground experience to WLD’s advocacy.
As Western Watersheds Project’s Biodiversity Director, Katie has monitored more public ground–from Modena to the Modoc to Mcdermitt, the Lemhis to Little Blue Table to the Little Lost to Leslie Gulch, from Jarbidge to Jump Creek to Jim Sage, the Pahsimeroi to the Pancake Range, Calico Mountains to Castleford–and brought more headache to those anti-environmental bureaucrats at BLM and Forest Service than arguably any other single person in the Western United States.