Wilderness Land Trust names Ahnu's Jacqueline Van Dine to Board

CARBONDALE, COLORADO (September 27, 2011)–The Wilderness Land Trust (www.wildernesslandtrust.org) has named Jacqueline Van Dine to their board of directors.

Founded in 1992, the Wilderness Land Trust is a non-profit organization dedicated to acquiring unprotected private land within wilderness and returning it to public ownership. The group’s current active programs include projects in Colorado, California, Washington, Idaho, Arizona, Nevada, Oregon and New Mexico.

Van Dine is a cofounder and brand director for Ahnu Footwear in San Francisco, California. Her role includes creating brand vision, marketing strategy, and product design. Under Van Dine’s leadership, Ahnu has donated more than $250,000 to environmental and health-focused non-profit organizations since the brand’s inception in 2007.

“Our Board of Directors has a long history of incredibly successful work and Jacqueline’s deep roots in the outdoor industry bring unique and welcome strengths to our group,” said Reid Haughey, Wilderness Land Trust President.

As a board member, Van Dine will join Chairman Mark Trautwein and eight others in oversight and guidance of the Wilderness Land Trust. She will serve a three-year term on the board.

“The wilderness movement is growing and evolving as it addresses emerging issues like climate change, making this an extremely important time to be involved,” said Van Dine. “The Wilderness Land Trust has a simple, strong goal, and can provide some immediate, permanent support to challenged ecosystems throughout the National Wilderness Preservation System — which now includes 757 areas (109,512,959 acres) in 44 states and Puerto Rico.”

The group’s mission is rooted in the history of wilderness in the United States. In 1964, The Wilderness Act created the landmark National Wilderness Preservation System. Under the system, once a wilderness area is created, its boundary and ownership can only be altered by an act of Congress.

While this landmark legislation allowed for the preservation of millions of acres of wilderness, many of those areas have included private lands – or “in-holdings” – such as mining claims, homesteads, timber claims and railroad grants. In the US, in-holdings within wilderness areas account for more than 400,000 acres.

The Wilderness Land Trust’s simple mission is to acquire those in-holdings from willing sellers and return them to the protection of the Wilderness Preservation System. The Trust has no ambitions beyond achieving the goal of the Wilderness Act — creating “a land where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.”

For more information on the Wilderness Land Trust and their mission, please visit their website at www.wildernesslandtrust.org, follow them on Facebook.

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