Best Climate Change Fighters/Environmental Group

1. McKenzie River Trust 120 Shelton McMurphey Blvd ste. 270. 541-345-2799. McKenzieRiver.org.

2. Cascadia Wildlands 120 Shelton McMurphey Blvd ste. 250. 541-434-1463. CascWild.org.

3. Our Children’s Trust / Juliana v. United StatesPO Box 5181 Eugene, OR 97405. OurChildrensTrust.org.

Founded in 1989, the McKenzie River Trust maintains natural areas in the Eugene-Springfield area and across western Oregon. The group works on a hyperlocal scale to maintain local “natural communities” and ecosystems, says Director of Development Sarah Merkle, as well as “the human communities that are intrinsically intertwined within that and part of that.”

Currently, the group works to care for over 7,000 acres of water and wildlife, including in the McKenzie watershed, in the Long Tom watershed and in part of the Umpqua watershed, as well as along the coast from Lincoln City to Reedsport.

The trust recently wrapped up a major restoration project at Finn Rock, along the McKenzie River. “Our restoration work there — and throughout our service areas — really focused on making a more resilient landscape in the face of a changing climate by restoring natural processes and allowing rivers and landscapes to regenerate,” Merkle says.

A Note From the Publisher

Dear Readers,

The last two years have been some of the hardest in Eugene Weekly’s 43 years. There were moments when keeping the paper alive felt uncertain. And yet, here we are — still publishing, still investigating, still showing up every week.

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