Wyoming Outdoor Council

Description

The Wyoming Outdoor Council is the oldest independent, membership-based conservation advocacy group in Wyoming.

It was founded in 1967 by rancher and veteran Tom Bell, along with other conservation-minded Wyomingites, originally as the Wyoming Outdoor Coordinating Council. Its mission is to protect Wyoming’s environment and quality of life, now and for future generations. It provides statewide leadership on environmental issues, brings people together from diverse backgrounds and organizes citizens to take action, grounding its work in both Western science and Indigenous ways of knowing.

The council works to keep public lands in public hands, push for science-based protections for wildlife, safeguard clean air and water statewide, and put tribal communities at the forefront of conservation decisions. Over its history it has opposed dams and clear-cutting proposals, fought a plan to store nuclear waste in the state, challenged mining reclamation practices in court, and pushed for wilderness and public land protections such as the Wyoming Wilderness Act and the Wyoming Range Legacy Act. It also works to conserve species whose ranges lie mainly within Wyoming.

The organization is based in Lander, Wyoming, with staff working across the state.