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Tieton River Canyon, Washington

October 19, 2005

The Nature Conservancy’s three-year fundraising campaign to conserve 10,400 acres of ecologically rich lands along the beautiful Tieton River is complete, thanks to a grant announced September 27 by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The Service’s announcement of a $2.4 million grant from the Cooperative Endangered Species Conservation Fund comes on the heels of a $2.8 million grant made by the Washington state legislature earlier this year. The two grants complete an ambitious campaign — spearheaded by The Nature Conservancy, the state Department of Fish and Wildlife, the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, and other partners — to secure funding for acquisition of the lands from Plum Creek Timber Co.

The Nature Conservancy began the campaign early in 2003. All told, more than $8 million has been raised to conserve lands along the Tieton, which flows into the Naches River about 20 miles west of Yakima. Before The Nature Conservancy stepped in, the lands — including some significant stands of mature ponderosa pine — were slated for logging and possible second-home development.

“This is a huge conservation win, a gift to all of us who care about our natural world,” said David Weekes, director of The Nature Conservancy in Washington. “The campaign was successful,” he added, “in large part because of strong collaboration, unwavering support from civic leaders, and a shared recognition of the Tieton’s ecological significance and its contribution to our natural heritage.”

The conservation project safeguards nearly eight miles of the Tieton River and all of the adjacent uplands, a place of considerable diversity because of its location between the Columbia Basin shrub-steppe and the forested eastern front of the Cascade Mountains. The project area supports mature ponderosa pine forests, oak woodlands, intact shrub-steppe, riparian floodplains, and dense streamside stands of willow, dogwood, and cottonwood. At least four federally listed and 15 state-listed species are found there, including spotted and flammulated owls, nesting golden eagles, bighorn sheep, and steelhead and bull trout.

The project is entirely within the boundary of the Wenatchee National Forest and adjacent to the state-owned Oak Creek Wildlife Area. Because of the checkerboard ownership pattern in this part of the state, the project’s completion means that more than 20,000 acres — nearly an entire township — of now fragmented lands will be knit into a contiguous landscape of protected habitat.

All of the land, except one section totaling 630 acres that the Conservancy will retain, will be transferred to the state for inclusion in the Oak Creek Wildlife Area. The Conservancy will recover its direct costs but make no net profit in that transaction.

The land the Conservancy retains will remain open to public use. It also will become a site for science-based restoration, a learning laboratory that will enable restoration practitioners throughout the region better understand how to steward and restore dry, East Side forests. Private and public fundraising for this restoration work is already underway and will continue for several years, said Betsy Bloomfield, The Nature Conservancy’s South Central Washington program manager.

“Our ownership will provide us with an excellent opportunity to understand the dynamics of ponderosa pine forests, so different from our wet, West Side forests,” Bloomfield said. “It’s not enough to put land into conservation-status. It also needs to be restored and stewarded, ensuring that natural processes can still unfold and wildlife still flourish."

For More Information:

• Where We Work: The Nature Conservancy in Washington
  The Nature Conservancy of Washington owns more than 50,000 acres of natural habitat and has helped to conserve more than 300,000 acres across the state.
• Places We Protect: Tieton River Canyon and the Tieton River Canyon Project
  The Nature Conservancy, with support from the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and several other partners, is working to protect 10,000 acres within the canyon. Successful completion of the project will knit together existing protected areas into a contiguous landscape of more than 20,000 acres of protected habitat.
• How We Work: Cooperative Conservation: The Tieton Canyon River Partnership
  The Tieton River Canyon lies in the heart of the East Cascades ecoregion, which boasts acres of white oak, ponderosa pine and riparian forestlands, many of them rare and all of them threatened.
• Press Release: Tieton River Canyon funding successfully completed
  The Nature Conservancy’s three-year fundraising campaign to conserve 10,400 acres of ecologically rich lands along the beautiful Tieton River is complete, thanks to the latest grant announced today by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
• Our Partner: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (U.S. FWS) and Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.
• Archive of our Saves of the Week and Success Stories
  Read more about The Nature Conservancy's work to save the last great places on Earth.