James Johnston is a native Oregonian who has worked on federal forest issues since he was seventeen. He was born and raised in the Coast Range west of Salem before attending college at the University of Oregon. After graduation he ran a saw for a living before founding the Cascadia Wildlands Project (www.cascwild.org), a conservation group dedicated to the protection of endangered ecosystems in Oregon, Washington and Alaska. He’s also been employed as the Executive Director of the Bellingham Bay Foundation, a non-profit group dedicated to the cleanup and redevelopment of an abandoned pulp mill on Bellingham, Washington’s downtown waterfront. He has worked on the commenting, appeals and litigation phases of more than 300 government projects in twelve states over the past ten years.

James has served on the board of the Oregon Chapter Sierra Club, the grant making committee of the McKenzie River Gathering Foundation, the steering committee of the Middle Fork Willamette Watershed Council, as a volunteer elementary school environmental educator, and as a lecturer at high schools, colleges and universities around the country. He writes a monthly outdoor column for Eugene Weekly.

James is an avid hiker, backpacker, fly fisherman and photographer who has covered more than a thousand miles of trail per year since he was old enough to drive. His hiking companion and life partner is Zella, a red-haired Rhodesian Ridgeback.