None The Nature Conservancy in Washington Press Releases Search All Press Releases Leslie Brown Phone: (206) 343-4344, ext. 379 E-mail: leslie_brown@tnc.org Jason Hunke Paul G. Allen Forest Protection Foundation Phone: (206) 342-2000

$2.5 million gift from Allen Foundation helps protect rare coastal forest

Nature Conservancy commends foundation for history of support

Seattle, WA — March 14, 2001 — The Nature Conservancy of Washington has received a $2.5 million grant from the Paul G. Allen Forest Protection Foundation to protect the Ellsworth Creek watershed, one of the rarest and most biologically diverse forestlands remaining in the Northwest.

The gift-a one-for-one challenge grant-is the second largest donation to a single project in the Washington chapter's 40-year history. It marks a significant step forward in the Conservancy's ambitious $20 million campaign to save this remarkable and threatened landscape.

"We're deeply grateful to Paul Allen and the Allen Foundation for their generosity and support," said Elliot Marks, the Conservancy's state director and regional vice president. "Paul Allen has been an incredible force for conservation in Washington state. We're fortunate to have such a philanthropist excited about conservation and committed to landscape-scale protection."

Once protected, the 5,000-acre Ellsworth Creek drainage will be the only fully protected coastal watershed between the Canadian border and central Oregon. Included in the watershed are more than 300 acres of rare, old-growth lowland forest, where some of the trees are more than 800 years old. The purchase will also ensure the health and future of Ellsworth Creek, a stream that teems with wild chum salmon, one of the healthiest native salmon runs remaining in Willapa Bay.

The watershed is managed by The Campbell Group, a timber investment management firm headquartered in the Pacific Northwest. The Conservancy's $20 million campaign to buy the watershed is the largest in the state chapter's history.

Sue Coliton, foundations manager at the Allen Foundation, said the organization decided to support the Ellsworth project because of both its rarity and immense biological diversity.

"Coastal temperate rainforest has been identified as one of the rarest ecosystems left in the world," Coliton said. "This is a fantastic and threatened landscape. We welcome the opportunity to see such a place permanently protected."

The Conservancy, a non-profit conservation group, announced its campaign to protect the Ellsworth drainage last September. Since then, one anonymous donor has given $2 million and several smaller donations have come in. All told, the Conservancy has raised more than $5 million towards its $20 million goal and has already purchased more than 1,500 acres.

The watershed is part of the coastal temperate rainforest of North America, which once extended from Northern California to Alaska. These lowland coastal forests are extremely productive, due to the unique coincidence of mild temperatures, substantial rainfall and limited snowfall. Scientists believe such forests produce the greatest accumulations of biomass - or organic materials - in the world, making them particularly rich in both habitat and biologic diversity.

Today, due largely to commercial logging practices, only remnants of the original forests remain. As a result, coastal temperate rainforests have become a high priority for conservation worldwide. The original forests of the Willapa Hills, where Ellsworth Creek is found, are especially rare. Only about one-half of one percent of Willapa's old-growth forests still stand.

"There is no higher priority for forest conservation in Washington state than protection and restoration of a forested watershed in the Willapa Hills," said Dr. Jerry F. Franklin, professor of ecosystem analysis at the University of Washington's College of Forest Resources. "Essentially, all of this extremely productive and diversity-rich landscape has been devoted to intensive forest management, leaving an entire geographic region of the state with little significant forest conservation."

The watershed also contains 350 acres of healthy estuarine wetlands at the mouth of Ellsworth Creek, which provide habitat for salmon, trout, birds and other animals. This, too, is critical habitat in the state, which has lost more than 70 percent of its coastal wetlands to development and other human manipulations.

The Conservancy is already working with local landowners, community leaders and local citizens to ensure that the project is an asset to the community.

The Paul G. Allen Forest Protection Foundation

The Paul G. Allen Forest Protection Foundation protects and sustains the endangered forested ecosystem of the Pacific Northwest and Hawaii. Through its grantmaking, the foundation seeks to safeguard the beauty, the natural resources and the recreational opportunities distinctive to the region for present and future generations. Past grant recipients include the Trust for Public Land and the Northwest Ecosystem Alliance. Established in 1997, the foundation is administered through Vulcan Northwest, Inc. in Seattle.

In 1998, the Allen Foundation made a record-setting $5 million gift to the Conservancy, one of the largest private gifts to conservation in the state. The gift required a two-to-one match and thus enabled the Conservancy to successfully complete an $18.5 million campaign to protect several ecologically critical parcels around the state.