About the Arid Lands Initiative
The Arid Lands Initiative is a group of public agencies and private organizations that voluntarily came together in 2009 to coordinate their on-going land management and conservation actions and projects, so as to achieve a shared vision of “a viable, well-connected system of eastern Washington’s arid lands and related freshwater habitats, that sustain native plant and animal communities, and that support compatible local economies and communities.”
Carter Mountain Balsamroot (Photo by Justin Haug)
The core team of the Arid Lands Initiative has worked together since then to identify shared priorities, to translate those priorities into coordinated action that leverages the strength of each partner and strives to make progress across large landscapes, and to engage with communities, local governments, tribes, and other interested organizations and individuals to identify and pursue actions that improve each place to the benefit of all local stakeholders, while at the same time contributing to the greater health of the ecosystem across the region. The core team is composed of multiple private and public entities who benefit from coordinating ongoing actions with each other, to help each of them achieve their own goals and objectives.