A Force for Nature

Nancy Russell's Fight to Save the Columbia Gorge

De: Bowen Blair

Narrado por: Melanie Carey

A Force for Nature is a biography of Nancy Russell and her successful campaign to establish and protect the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area. Bowen Blair tells the story of the activist who fought one of the most fiercely contested conservation battles of the 1980s, interweaving it with the natural and political history of the legendary landscape that inspired her.

The 85-mile-long Columbia Gorge forms part of the border between Oregon and Washington and is one of the nation’s most historic and scenic landscapes. Many of the region’s cultural divisions boil over here—urban versus rural, west of the mountains versus east—as well as clashes over private property rights, management of public lands, and tribal treaty rights.

In the early 1980s, as a new interstate bridge linked the City of Portland to rural counties in Washington, the Gorge’s renowned vistas were on the brink of destruction. Nancy Russell, forty-eight years old and with no experience in advocacy, fundraising, or politics, built a grassroots movement that overcame 70 years of failed efforts and bitter opposition from both Oregon and Washington governors, five of the six Gorge counties, 41,000 Gorge residents, and the Reagan administration. While building her campaign, Russell stopped subdivisions, factories, and government neglect through litigation brought by her organization, Friends of the Columbia Gorge, and last-second land purchases by the Trust for Public Land (TPL). Initially ignored, then demonized, Russell’s tires were slashed and her life threatened.

The Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area Act barely passed—on the last day of the congressional session in 1986—and was signed by a reluctant President Reagan hours before the bill would die. Russell positioned the Friends to be a watchdog and orchestrated the purchase of thousands of acres of land for the public. Bowen Blair, an attorney, former executive director of Friends of the Columbia Gorge, and TPL senior vice president, brings an insider’s perspective to the tumultuous and inspiring story of this conservation battle.

©2022 Bowen Blair (P)2024 Oregon State University Press

Reseñas de la Crítica

“Author Bowen Blair had a front-row seat at one of the late 20th century’s most protracted, unlikely, and ultimately successful conservation stories, and his telling of it reads like a whodunnit. He compellingly traces his protagonist’s journey from self-described ‘small and provincial’ housewife to one of the country’s most admired public lands advocates as she goes toe-to-toe with US senators and overcomes myriad reversals, even death threats.” —Bonnie Henderson, author of The Next Tsunami and Hiking the Oregon Coast Trail

“In a time when the world feels tilting towards despair, read this book. Learn from the example of one courageous woman who didn't know how to give up and overcame what seemed insurmountable odds to give us, and future generations, a national treasure--the unspoiled beauty of the Columbia River Gorge. This sweeping story, meticulously researched, affords us much needed hope that values such as integrity, idealism and altruism still exist.” —Marcy Houle, author of A Generous Nature and The Prairie Keepers

"The Columbia River Gorge was the nation’s first proposed national scenic area, and certainly its most controversial. Now, forty years after I held the first of several contentious hearings for the National Scenic Area Act, it protects one of the country’s most scenic and historic landscapes, as well as its cultural and recreational values. The Gorge’s economy and population thrive. We should look to the National Scenic Area as a model for protecting other nationally significant, complex areas, and to Nancy Russell and A Force for Naturefor inspiration.” —Bob Packwood, former U.S. Senator, sponsor of the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area Act.