Sierra Club's Lewis and Clark Campaign

Much has changed since Lewis and Clark. The Columbia River is no longer, in Meriwether Lewis' words "crouded with salmon." Damming has reduced the Missouri at Omaha to one-third of its 1803 width. Ninety percent of Washington's old-growth forests are gone. Only 1 percent of our native tallgrass prairies remain. And where we once had 100,000 grizzly bears, there are now fewer than 1,000 left.

Yet much endures. Travelers to North Dakota's Little Missouri Badlands, Lemhi Pass through the Rocky Mountains, or Idaho's Lolo Trail can still find an America unchanged since the days of Lewis and Clark.

To recognize what's lost and celebrate what's left, the Sierra Club has launched a five-year campaign commemorating the Lewis and Clark bicentennial by conserving and restoring our wild heritage.

Our hope is to use the bicentennial of Lewis and Clark to help America rediscover these incredible lands and urge Americans to advocate the protection and restoration of our remaining wild places. Our goal is to permanently protect the 56 million acres of remaining wildlands in Lewis and Clark country, preserve and restore key wildlife habitat and protect threatened and endangered species like bison, wolves, grizzly bears and salmon. The solutions we advocate include: wilderness designation, hands-on conservation, lands acquisition, smart growth and ending commercial logging on our National Forests and public lands.