Abigail Washburn is the latest artist to join the Nature Conservancy’s fight for the environment. The singer-songwriter and bandmate Kai Welch have joined the organization’s All Hands on Earth music campaign, appearing and performing in a new video that showcases the beauty of coastal Oregon and recalls the lessons of Washburn’s childhood climb of the Grand Tetons. Billboard.com now exclusively debuts the Washburn and Welch Nature Conservancy video.
Watch Washburn and Welch’s Nature Conservancy video:
“If you look at a big mountain and… you come up with a plan and you put one foot in front of the other, before you know it, you’re at the top. That was something that wilderness and being in nature taught me about life,” Washburn told Billboard.com. “It’s more than even saving wilderness, [the Nature Conservancy is] creating a mindset of appreciating wilderness and what it does for humanity. I couldn’t be more behind it.”
The Nature Conservancy protects areas worldwide, with the goal of preserving life along with the environment. A number of musicians have joined the charity’s current campaign, including Glen Hansard and Ryan Bingham.
Both Washburn and Welch hope their involvement extends beyond the video, with the enthusiastic duo full of project ideas.
“I used to be a river guide on the Snake River in Hells Canyon between Oregon and Idaho, and it’s just [a] crazy 10,000-foot ravine of black rock and rattlesnakes, bald eagles and everything else,” Welch said. “I have this dream of doing a wilderness concert series that takes place in places like that, where people get involved and do the work of getting to these places, that could be the most dramatic and profound backdrop for music.”