Mitchell A. Friedman (born c. 1963) is an American conservation biologist and activist who founded the organization Conservation Northwest in 1989 and now serves as its executive director. Active in the U.S. state of Washington, Friedman published early in his career on protection of the North Cascades ecosystem. His 2025 memoir, Conservation Confidential, was published as a strategy guide for activists based on his radical experiences with Earth First! and less polarizing leadership of Conservation Northwest.
Early life and education Mitch Friedman was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1963 or 1964. He was raised in the suburb of Deerfield as the youngest of four children, and during his adolescence went on canoeing trips to the Boundary Waters, which had "a huge impact" on him. Also during his upbringing, Friedman was shocked during a family trip to a national forest in Colorado that logs were allowed to be harvested from within the supposedly-protected area. While attending Highland Park High School, Friedman played on the football team, but stood out more for his successes on the pole vault, in which he was a state medalist. He enrolled at Montana State University in 1981 to continue his pole vaulting career, where he majored in wildlife management. He transferred to the University of Washington after two years, where he completed a double major in zoology and environmental studies.
Career While a student at the University of Washington, Friedman spotted a flyer for a meeting of Earth First!, a radical nature conservation movement. After attending the meeting, he became a leader within the Washington Earth First! movement and organized Earth Day events on the university campus. During his time with Earth First!, Friedman tree sat in Oregon and Washington on multiple occasions, including in 1985 at the Millennium Grove in Oregon. During a period from 1985 to 1988, he was arrested approximately a dozen times for his actions, including for protesting clearcutting of old-growth forests. In 1991, Friedman published an article on ancient forests in the second-ever issue of Wild Earth. Friedman published books in 1988 and 1993 applying principles of conservation biology to the protection of ecosystems in the North Cascades and wider Pacific Northwest: Forever Wild (1988) and Cascadia Wild (1993). In the late 1980s, Friedman, then with Earth First!, devised the idea for what became the Ancient Forest Rescue Expedition, a 1989 cross-country tour of a trailered old-growth log intended to nationalize support for protection of ancient forests. The expedition departed from Pike Place Market on Earth Day 1989 and returned to Portland, Oregon, a month later. Driving the log (named "The Big One" and displaying a banner reading "Save Our Ancient Forests!") coast-to-coast through over 40 U.S. states, the group of expeditioners brought attention to the issue of old-growth logging by displaying the "monster" log, sourced from Washington state. Subsequent tours were undertaken in 1990 and 1991.
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