Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance

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The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) is a wilderness preservation organization in the United States based in Salt Lake City, Utah, with field offices in Washington, D.C. and Moab, Utah. The organization formed in 1983 and is a partner in the Utah Wilderness Coalition, a coalition of organizations nationwide that support federal wilderness designation for deserving public lands in Utah.^[1]

Contents 1 Mission 2 Campaigns 3 Finances 4 Controversy 5 References 6 External links

[edit] Mission

The mission of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) is the preservation of the outstanding wilderness at the heart of the Colorado Plateau, and the management of these lands in their natural state for the benefit of all Americans.

SUWA promotes local and national recognition of the region's unique character through research and public education; supports both administrative and legislative initiatives to permanently protect the Colorado Plateau wild places within the National Park and National Wilderness Preservation Systems, or by other protective designations where appropriate; builds support for such initiatives on both the local and national level; and provides leadership within the conservation movement through uncompromising advocacy for wilderness preservation.^[2]

[edit] Campaigns

The primary campaign of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance is to build public support for America's Red Rock Wilderness Act, which was first introduced in Congress in 1988 by Utah Congressman Wayne Owens. The bill has been reintroduced in every session of Congress since, but has yet to be debated on the floor. In 1997 the first companion bill was introduced in the United States Senate by Dick Durbin. Although America's Red Rock Wilderness Act gained over 100 cosponsors with each session it has never been sponsored by any other member of the Utah congressional delegation.

SUWA also works through the courts to protect areas in Utah that it believes qualifies as Wilderness under the federal Wilderness Act of 1964 from uses which would cause these areas to be disqualified from Wilderness consideration^[3]. Such uses include off-road vehicle use, aircraft overflights, grazing, oil and gas development, and mining.^[3][4]

[edit] Finances

In the late 1990s, SUWA began building a large endowment from grants. The Pew Charitable Trusts and the Wyss Foundation were particularly generous. As of 2004, SUWA had amassed almost $5 million. Swiss-born billionaire Hansjorg Wyss joined the board of SUWA in 1996 and later financed a new $1.4 million Salt Lake City headquarters. Though SUWA has been able raise large sums of money over the last decade its membership numbers have declined 30% from a high of 20,000 to 14,000 ^[5] Still, SUWA maintains that 70 percent of their funding comes from membership dues and donations, and roughly 80 percent of the organization's income is spent on program work.^[6]

[edit] Controversy

In May 2007, New York millionaire Bert Fingerhut, who served on the SUWA board of directors for 18 years, pled guilty to one count of conspiracy in connection with a plot to reap more than $12 million in illegal profits by circumventing rules controlling how private banks are converted to public ownership. As part of his plea deal, he forfeited $11 million. On August 3, 2007 he was sentenced to two years in federal prison.^[7]

In October 2007 Mark Ristow, SUWA's treasurer and a SUWA trustee for about 20 years, pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud in a scheme similar to Fingerhut's. In February 2008, he was sentenced to 20 months in federal prison and forfeiture of $2.8 million in profits. ^[8][9][10]

On March 1, 2008, a letter signed by 45 members of the Utah House of Representatives requested detailed financial records from SUWA. The letter referred to the guilty pleas of Fingerhut and Ristow and said, "given SUWA's large amount of financial contributions and outside sources of funding, and especially SUWA's long-time association with these two individuals, the citizens of Utah demand your accountability with regard to these matters."^[11]

[edit] References

Links to Salt Lake Tribune archived stories

• Paul Beebe, "Ex-SUWA bigwig faces prison in stock scheme" Salt Lake Tribune (August 1, 2007)
• Stephen Hunt, "Former SUWA board member facing prison" Salt Lake Tribune (October 25, 2007)

[edit] External links

• Official SUWA website
• America's Redrock Wilderness Act - Library of Congress
• Map of proposed wilderness - SUWA

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