Two groups take lead in land swaps

Two conservation groups have played key roles in recent large-scale land deals that preserve public access and wildlife habitat near Yakima.

“The Nature Conservancy took the lead in raising $8 million for securing 10,400 acres to expand the Oak Creek Wildlife Area in the Tieton River drainage.

“The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation contributed to the Tieton River land deals and stepped up at a pivotal moment to help the Department of Natural Resources block up 38,000 acres in the Ahtanum River drainage.

“DNR had the Ahtanum deal worked out, but with 23 other land exchanges pending it had run out of money for the required appraisals,” said Rance Block, RMEF regional director. “The private companies involved in the exchange weren’t going to wait for new biennium funding, so we came in with $50,000 for the appraisals.”

The result: DNR exchanged checkerboard lands with two timber companies to create a solid 38,000-acre block of ownership in what is called the Ahtanum State Forest southwest of Yakima. More land deals are under way to expand the block of state-owned land.

In 2003, as Plum Creek Timber Co. was cashing out of forest lands throughout the West, The Nature Conservancy stepped up to save a critical region of Washington wildlife habitat from almost certain development.

TNC secured $8 million in federal, state and private funds for last year’s purchase of 10,400 acres from Plum Creek in the Tieton Canyon about 20 miles west of Yakima. The project – the most expensive Eastern Washington acquisition effort in the Conservancy’s history – involved checkerboard ownerships within the boundary of the Wenatchee National Forest.

Most of the TNC-acquired land is being transferred to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife for inclusion in the adjacent state-owned Oak Creek Wildlife Area.

When the transactions are completed, large swaths of the Tieton Canyon will be controlled almost entirely by public agencies or TNC, although the land remains in a checkerboard ownership.

Last month, the Conservancy, Forest Service, and the Washington Departments of Fish and Wildlife and Natural Resources agreed to work more closely to coordinate issues ranging from forest health to recreation and wildlife management.

“Under the patchwork of land ownership we have been precluded from using tools such as fire management to benefit the forest ecosystem,” said Jeff Koenings, WDFW director. “This agreement will allow us to use those tools to be better stewards of fish, wildlife and forests.”

The agreement knits 20,000 acres of fragmented lands into a contiguous landscape of protected habitat. This block of land is proposed to become an addition to the Oak Creek Wildlife area, which encompasses roughly 65,000 acres of critical wintering area for up to 5,000 Rocky Mountain elk.

More than 100,000 visitors a year come to watch these elk as they are fed on the wildlife area to mitigate the impacts of 100 miles of fencing built in the region to keep them from raiding agricultural fields that are on their natural wintering range.

“It’s great we’re seeing more private and non-profit sector participation in land management,” said Mark Quinn, Fish and Wildlife Department lands manager. “We’ve always said we don’t have the capacity to manage all the lands important to fish and wildlife.

“Because they’re locally based, they establish local trust and partnerships. It makes the community much more a participant in their own conservation future.”