Bowen Blair
Bowen Blair is an attorney focused on protecting exceptional American landscapes and returning conservation lands to tribes. He served as executive director of Friends of Columbia Gorge from 1982 to 1988, and worked with the U.S. Congress and Oregon and Washington governors to pass the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area Act in 1984. From 1989–2010, he founded the Trust for Public Land’s Oregon office, oversaw its land acquisition nationally, and started its Tribal & Native Lands Program. He was on the the Columbia River Gorge Commission from 2012 to 2020. He is the author of a biography about Nancy Neighbor Russell, A Force for Nature: Nancy Russell’s Fight to Save the Columbia Gorge (2022).
Author's Entries
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Nancy Neighbor Russell (1932–2008)
Nancy Neighbor Russell was instrumental in rescuing one of the Northwest’s most revered and threatened landscapes, the Columbia River Gorge in Oregon and Washington. In 1980, she founded Friends of the Columbia Gorge which worked to protect the Gorge from development and secure it for federal protection. Russell was an …
Oregon Encyclopedia
