Advocacy

When you register for Run the Red, you are signing up for more than just a race. You are showing land managers, decision makers, and the people of Wyoming that this is a landscape worth protecting — for future generations to experience and be inspired by. 

We know that one of the best ways to experience a landscape is to run through it. This was why Run the Red was created by three Wyoming non-profits dedicated to conservation and stewardship of public lands – to help connect people like you to one the most wild and threatened landscapes in Wyoming.

The Northern Red Desert is often described as the largest unfenced area in the Lower 48. It is home to nine “wilderness study areas”— large, wild, roadless tracts determined through a national process to contain some of our nation’s best remote opportunities for solitude and recreation. These special places help preserve badlands, historic trails, fossilized remains from the shores of ancient seas, and early Native American petroglyphs and camps. The wide-open country also supports abundant wildlife, including a rare desert elk herd and crucial winter range for the migratory big game herds that roam southwest Wyoming. 

The Red Desert has made progress towards protection and we believe this race is part to thank. Below are some statistics:

  • First year of Run the Red in 2014: 67 runners

  • Largest race in 2022: 327 runners

  • Total runners from 2014-2024: 1172

  • About 150 letters were sent to Governor Gordon asking him to put in motion processes to protect the Red Desert

  • About 50 postcards each year to the BLM to prioritize updating the Rock Springs RMP with much needed wildland protections

  • RtR helped local coalition of npo's including WOC & WWA garner over 40k comments in support of the BLM's proposed protections for RD in draft RMP. see timeline

  • Funded TEK (Traditional Ecological Knowledge) campout in Red Desert hosted by members of Northern Arapaho & Eastern Shoshone Tribes

  • Funded several volunteer projects over the years such as modifying fences in Golden Triangle for better wildlife passage (in critical sage-grouse habitat & big game migration corridors), helping keep these lands connected & intact

  • Advocated for and achieved conservation protections in final RS RMP

    • over 1 million new acres of environmental protections in form of ACECS, LWCS, and WSA buffers

    • hundreds of thousands of acres of exisitng protections carried forward in new RMP

    • over 1 million acres of oil & gas closure & responsible siting of renewable energy

To learn more about the Red Desert’s long history of advocacy or to join the movement to protect this landscape, visit WWAs link below.