The Land Trust and the Nisqually Community Forest board of directors recently tripled the size of the Community Forest with two major acquisitions.
In December, acting as the purchasing agent for the Community Forest, the Land Trust acquired a full section (640 acres) of heavily forested timberlands along Busy Wild Creek, the headwaters of the Mashel River. This property adjoins the first section of the Community Forest, which was acquired in 2016.
And in April, in two separate transactions, the Land Trust added two 320-acre parcels to the existing block, bringing the Community Forest to a total of 1,920 acres. This completed Phase I of the project, which is now the largest locally-owned community forest in the state. It was also the first community forest in Puget Sound.
These purchases were made possible in part by grant funding from the Puget Sound Acquisition and Restoration Program and the Washington Salmon Recovery Board, administered by the state’s Recreation and Conservation Office, and from the Pierce County Conservation Futures program.
And one of the April purchases would not have been possible without a substantial, eleventh-hour loan from The Conservation Fund, a national nonprofit organization that supports development of community forests. Without the loan, the property would have gone to another buyer.
Our deepest thanks to these partners, and also to the seller, the Hancock Timber Resource Group, which worked patiently with us through a complex transaction process.
“This is a vivid demonstration of the power of partnerships, and of community,” said Community Forest Board President Bryan Bowden. “And it’s just the start.”
Located near Ashford and Mount Rainier National Park, the Nisqually Community Forest is a working forest managed specifically to benefit our local communities by providing forestry and tourism jobs, recreation, education, clean air and water, and abundant wildlife habitat.
The Nisqually Community Forest now protects some 22 miles of shoreline along Busy Wild Creek and its tributaries, which are critical to the recovery of threatened steelhead trout and Chinook salmon.
As well, the Community Forest adjoins the Land Trust’s 2,500-acre Mount Rainier Gateway Reserve. Between them, the two projects also provide long-term protection of some three miles of the most popular section of the Mount Tahoma Trails Association’s hut-to-hut cross-country ski trail, the largest such no-fee public trail in the country.