The Lands Council summarizes its 40 years

By Kate Vanskike

In 2025, The Lands Council (TLC) celebrates 40 years of preserving and protecting Inland Northwest public lands to promote healthy forests, water and communities.

The 1974 World's Fair hosted in Spokane was the first world's fair to focus on environmental topics. Out of the international celebration, the slogan "reduce, reuse, recycle" became a household term.

A decade later, other developments emerged around environmental causes in the Inland Northwest, leading to the founding of The Lands Council.

Notably, the organization that became The Lands Council was begun and led by medical doctors not by forest rangers, biologists or ecologists.

John Osborn and fellow interns at Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center sat in a break room near the intensive care unit to organize for protecting trout streams and elk habitat.

In a 2024 interview with KYRS radio host Carol Ellis, John said the Spokane Resident Physicians Action League, as it was called, focused on protecting the headwaters of the St. Joe and Clearwater rivers and a 200,000-acre wildland known as Mallard-Larkins that they also wanted protected in the national wilderness preservation system. 

"We changed our name in 1985 to the Inland Empire Public Lands Council because our work had extended beyond wilderness, and so we were getting involved in forest planning and the congressional appropriations process," he said. "Then we were increasingly involved in trying to stop the massive over-cutting of the corporate lands that are based on the Northern Pacific River Land Grant."

When the issue of toxins from mining arose, the group changed its name again, this time to The Lands Council (TLC).

"Council has meaning. It really was a council of conservation leaders from the hunting, angling and environmental communities, a powerhouse of leaders in conservation from various communities that came together to try to deal with these pressing issues," John said.

Early staffers were activists—constantly opposing those who would ransack forests and using litigation at every opportunity. Lawsuits were the name of the game in the 1980s and 1990s. Healthier forests are the result.

John and crew were also creative, producing a monthly newsletter called Transitions, which was mailed to members of Congress to educate them on practical, yet critical issues like the safety of the water supply. The newsletters included political cartoons like those in national newspapers. They are now in the University of Idaho online archives at lib.uidaho.edu/digital/transitions.

Under Mark Solomon, executive director from 1995 to 1999, TLC did a "Get the Lead Out" campaign, producing a video and mailing 10,000 VHS tapes to residents, educating them on how to contact their representatives. The videos warned about 165 billion pounds of toxins flowing into the waters of the basin of the Silver Valley, washing down into the Coeur d'Alene River into Coeur d'Alene Lake and then into the Spokane River.

Mark introduced another tactic that proved helpful to the environmental cause: offering conferences and workshops demonstrating how activists could learn to find solutions with those who opposed their work.

"I wanted people to be well aware of how the process worked and identify whether they were capable of compromise," he said in an interview this spring. "It was particularly illuminating for the staff, some of whom believed that compromise was 'selling out' before the exercise. That changed."

Creating alliances with unlikely friends continued in the 2000s under the leadership of Mike Petersen, who built relationships with lumber companies to protect regional forests. One outcome was creating the Northeast Washington Forest Coalition, which has set an example for forest cooperatives across the nation. Under Mike, staff also addressed oil trains and wildlife issues.

Over time, the work of The Lands Council shifted from a focus on political advocacy to stream restoration through tree planting, which allowed the organization to engage the community in the work of helping nature thrive against the odds.

Another creative solution has been harnessing the natural work of beavers, first relocating the dam-builders and then learning to mimic the work with beaver dam analogs. 

Today, under the leadership of Amanda Parrish, who was a staffer for 12 years before becoming executive director, The Lands Council is adapting once more.

While community tree-planting, stream restoration and forest coalition work continues, the staff now includes a climate justice director to support initiatives concerning communities most affected by ecological realities. 

"At its roots, TLC's mission is still similar to the original spirit of what John and others built," Amanda said.

A key difference is a move from the rural areas into the urban core, where The Lands Council provides free street trees in neighborhoods that are most in need of shade and cooling.

"There are mental health benefits from access to natural green spaces," Amanda said. 

There are other ways The Lands Council weaves justice work into environmental action. A key example is its connection with Geiger Corrections Center, where TLC's longest-serving staffer, Kat Hall, has inspired and trained inmates to plant and care for seedlings that crews later plant around Spokane County.

Much like the doctors in the beginning, and the activists and ecologists who followed, today's Lands Council thrives on connecting with the city's Urban Forestry Department, the county's Conservation District, the state's Department of Ecology and most importantly, to regular citizens who want to do something good for the land and for the community.

Today, as threats of federal funding cuts call into question the sustainability of these programs, organizations like The Lands Council rely increasingly on philanthropic support.

During Earth Month 2025 and throughout the 40th anniversary year of the region's longest-serving environmental nonprofit, The Lands Council is recruiting people to be involved in donating financial support or joining the next tree planting.

In the spirit of The Lands Council's early leaders, its staff and board urge people to write letters to elected officials, asking them to support conservation efforts.

For information, visit landscouncil.org.

Kate Vanskike is a tree hugger whose love for the natural world was sparked, in part, by old-time hymns she played in the church where her father was pastor. Currently serving as president of the board for The Lands Council, she enjoys walking barefoot in the woods near her home in Spokane Valley.