Great Old Broads for Wilderness

Great Old Broads for Wilderness advocacy and leadership activities in 2023 involved more than 74-million acres of public lands. Nearly 40,000 volunteer hours were recorded by Broadband chapters and more than 5,400 of those hours were related to monitoring and stewardship activities. They reported more than 1,400 advocacy actions including calls, letters, and submitting substantive comments on rulemaking and agency proposals.Seven new Broadbands launched in 2023 including four in California: Redwoods, Eastern Sierra, San Diego Wild Spaces, and Wild L.A. Other chapters include the GRITS Broadband in north Georgia, Northern Arizona Broadband, and Northern Front Range Broadband (CO).Broads hosted three educational webinars about the proposed Bureau of Land Management Public Lands Rule, two of which drew more than 317 participants. The third webinar, co-hosted with Third Act, examined how the rule would impact activities contributing to climate change. Several hundred people registered for the event.The success of these and other webinars in 2023 significantly increased participation in advocacy efforts. Email Action Alerts sent to our mailing list asking members to submit commits on the BLM Public Lands Rule and a U.S. Forest Service proposal related to mature and old-growth forests resulted in more than 837 comments by individualsas well as substantive comments submitted by Broadbands.