Advancing landscape-scale forest conservation

THE GORGE — Columbia Land Trust and partners have secured funding for forestland conservation and water quality protection in Hood River and Wasco counties.

The Land Trust partnered with The Conservation Fund and Oregon Department of Forestry to secure more than $9 million in funding from the U.S. Forest Service Forest Legacy Program to facilitate the conservation of more than 14,000 acres of forestland in Oregon’s East Cascades. This funding will help safeguard drinking water, protect recreation access, preserve jobs in the timber and recreation industries, and foster high quality wildlife habitat. 

“This area of Oregon is an important transitional habitat zone,” said Columbia Land Trust Conservation Director Nate Ulrich. “The topographic diversity just east of the Cascade crest facilitates incredible ecological diversity.”

This funding award is the latest milestone in an ongoing partnership between Columbia Land Trust, Twin Creeks Timber / Green Diamond Resource Company, and The Conservation Fund.

When complete, this project will protect public recreational access to thousands of acres, including popular hiking and mountain biking trails outside Hood River. Much of the acreage will remain as sustainably managed working forests. One parcel will eventually be acquired by The City of the Dalles to protect the municipal drinking water supply. The Dalles is the largest city in Wasco County, and nearly 80% of the city’s water comes from surface water sources located within The Dalles Municipal Watershed. The parcel that will be conserved with this funding is the last, major, privately-owned land within the municipal watershed drainages. 

“Because the lands that this project will conserve are adjacent to federal and county owned forests, “it protects landscape connectivity that is essential to both people and wildlife,” said Ulrich. “It strategically builds upon years of conservation work by Columbia Land Trust and partners and will lead to long-lasting positive impacts.”