Two trailblazers begin a new venture
Alaska Conservation Foundation was founded in 1980, the same year Congress passed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act. The timing was no coincidence. Alaska Conservation Foundation’s co-founders, Celia Hunter and Denny Wilcher, were veterans of that decade-long struggle to protect more than 100 million acres of Alaska in parks, refuges, and national forests.
Celia Hunter was an Alaska pilot and adventurer who had been fighting to protect Alaska’s environment since the late 1950s. Denny Wilcher helped the legendary David Brower build the Sierra Club during the 1960s, before Alaska’s beauty lured him north.
Celia and Denny knew that protecting the state’s wild and unspoiled wonders would require a strong Alaska-based conservation movement. That’s where Alaska Conservation Foundation came in.
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