2015 off to a momentous start
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Recovery of the Oregon chub
Did you hear about the little fish that could? On February 17th, the Oregon chub became the first fish ever to be delisted from the Endangered Species Act. This monumental achievement was achieved because of conservation done on private lands through the long-standing collaboration between private landowners, natural resource agencies, land trusts, and watershed councils. COLT member the McKenzie River Trust played a pivotal role in the chub's recovery, as we highlighted in our State of the Lands report. Many of the partners gathered below at the Finley National Wildlife Refuge to celebrate this conservation victory (photo by Jesse Skoubu of the Corvallis Gazette-Times).
For two great videos of the Oregon chub, check out:
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2015 Oregon Legislative Session
Since Oregon's legislative session began on February 2nd, COLT has been tracking bills that impact the work of land trusts. COLT staff is often in Salem meeting with state legislators and attending hearings on bills that matter to the Oregon land trust community. We now have a website where people can find out what we are tracking, and issues that are important to land trusts in Oregon. 
Photo by AP Photo/Don Ryan |
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Halfway to permanency!
House passes federal
conservation tax incentive
On February 12th, the US House of Representatives passed HR 644 279-127, which would make permanent the  enhanced conservation easement tax incentive, along with two other provisions important for nonprofits. This important incentive for landowners contributed to a 33% increase in donated conservation easements across the county when it began in 2006. Unfortunately, Congress allowed the incentive to expire, once again, on December 31st, 2014, leaving many conservation-minded landowners in doubt as to the future of the incentive. There now is stand-alone bill in the Senate, S.330, to make this permanent. COLT continues to work in partnership with the Land Trust Alliance to bring awareness and urgency to this opportunity to finally provide long-term assurance for landowners that this incentive can be a part of their plans. Click here for our fact sheet to learn more.
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Wallowa Land Trust's Kathleen Ackley presents Senator Ron Wyden with a framed photo of Wallowa Lake, in appreciation of his work supporting LWCF in Congress.
Wallowa Land Trust's East Moraine project ranks 10th nationally
Settled in the far corner of NE Oregon, a project to protect a significant portion of one of the most iconic landscapes in the west – the East Moraine of Wallowa Lake – recently won national recognition. A $3 million award requested through the federal Forest Legacy grant program to protect the East Moraine ranked number 10 nationwide. Administered through the U. S. Department of Agriculture, the Forest Legacy program, designed to protect working forestlands by preventing privately owned forests from being converted to non-forest uses, is part of the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), one of the nation's most important federal conservation program. COLT members Wallowa Land Trust and The Trust for Public Land are part of the Wallowa Lake Moraines Partnership, which is working to conserve this scenic viewshed and create a community forest. For the partnership to receive the funds and protect the Moraine, LWCF will need to be reauthorized. COLT, along with partners across the country, is working with Senators Wyden and Merkley, and members of Oregon's House delegation, to ensure LWCF continues to fund important projects like this in Oregon and across the country.
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Editorial Boards celebrate land trusts
In recent weeks, several editorial boards from papers around the state have highlighted the work and value land trusts in their communities. Some of these editorials responded to success stories, like the Corvallis Gazette-Times celebrating McKenzie River Trust's role in the delisting of the Oregon chub (And now to celebrate a small species victory). Others champion their local land trust's efforts to achieve broad-scale conservation, such as the Bend Bulletin's editorial singling out Deschutes Land Trust and their work to protect the 33,000-acre Skyline forest (Skyline Forest should become a community forest).
One editorial in The Daily Astorian in particular captured our attention with their sincere and insightful appreciation of land trusts working along the north coast: the Columbia Land Trust, the North Coast Land Conservancy, and The Nature Conservancy. In their editorial (Making conservation palatable in rural areas), the paper emphasized that land trusts achieve conservation success by respecting property rights: "...few would now question that land trusts and conservancies manage to put money where their mouths are when it comes to protecting rural assets." Well said, we feel.
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Staff from The Nature Conservancy of Oregon, The Wetlands Conservancy, and the Coalition of Oregon Land Trusts met with Rep. Suzanne Bonamici to discuss land trust work in the state.
Land Trust news from around the state
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Friends of the Columbia Gorge Land Trust's new video promoting their Gorge Towns to Trails program uses beautiful drone-captured video. Take a look!
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COLT's weekly land trust e-news
Since the fall, COLT has sent out an email every Monday to the land trust community through our Yahoo group listserv with news, grant deadlines, and other pertinent information. If you are interested in joining this listserv, simply send a blank message to simply send a blank email to oregonlandtrusts-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. You will receive a confirmation email soon thereafter, where you should select option 2), which will ask you to, "REPLY to this email by clicking "Reply" and then "Send”…”
We have also archived past Monday mailings on our website for reference. Feel free to take a look!
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Be sure to check out The Wetlands Conservancy's wonderful new website
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"...in Wildness is the preservation of the world." Thoreau
Summit Lake near Mt. Hood, Oregon. (Photo by COLT staff)
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