The David and Lucile Packard Foundation's $122 million Western Conservation initiative — one of the largest environmental initiatives in the history of the West — successfully supported a broad range of advocacy and conservation efforts by more than two hundred organizations, even after its budget was slashed in the wake of the economic downturn, an evaluation by the California Environmental Associates finds. The report, David and Lucile Packard Foundation Western Conservation Evaluation (15 pages, PDF), found that between 2008 and 2012, direct land purchases, conservation easements, and policy reforms supported by grants led to the protection of hundreds of thousands of acres of critical habitat, open space, and natural resources in California, the Colorado Plateau region, and northwest Mexico. The report also found that the impact of the initiative was limited in Utah, where a decades-old logjam over wilderness-quality lands continued; that in the wake of the Great Recession, efforts to jumpstart the economy was prioritized over environmental protection; and that antiquated legal systems slowed progress on several water-related issues.