Conservation group buys 165,000 acres of Plum Creek timberlands in effort to keep land wild

A decades-old effort to protect traditional wildlife corridors and public access to western forests is getting a huge boost in Washington and Montana by an international conservation group.

The Nature Conservancy is buying 48,000 acres of forest land from Plum Creek Timber on the east slope of Washington’s Cascade Mountains for long-term conservation along with 117,000 acres in the Blackfoot River Valley of Western Montana.

Announced last week, the $49 million purchase in Washington includes all of the timber company’s holdings from Snoqualmie Pass to Cle Elum – about 75 square miles scattered among state and national forest lands – along both sides of the Interstate 90 corridor.

As part of the same deal, the conservation nonprofit will pay $85 million for the private timberland in Montana.

Reese Lolley, The Nature Conservancy’s Eastern Washington forests director in Yakima, said the nonprofit will work with the local communities and the managers of the neighboring state and federal forests to develop a long-term plan for the lands.

The deals are the latest in a decades- old effort by state and federal agencies, land trusts and conservation groups to do away with the “checkerboard” ownership of lands granted in 1862 by Congress to the Great Northern and Northern Pacific railroads.

Through an act of Congress, every other section (one square mile) of land within 10-40 miles of a proposed railroad right-of-way was granted to the railroad companies while the federal government retained the neighboring sections.

Logging on those forests helped pay the costs of building and operating western railroads. But in recent decades, the value of the lands increased, tempting the private timber companies that took over the forests to please shareholders by selling choice parcels to private buyers.

Also, management of the intermingled public land has become more difficult and costly.

“With the human population destined to continue growing in the I-5 corridor, it would have been pretty attractive at some point to begin selling off that land near I-90 in 5- and 40-acre parcels,” said Dave Ware, a wildlife manager for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife in Olympia.

“Once you start carving up land and putting up fences it loses a lot of its wildlife value, especially for elk and carnivores.”

Conserving the land, he said, keeps the options open for wildlife overpasses and preserving corridors for wildlife movements on both sides of I-90.

Concerns were raised in the 1990s, especially in Montana, as private timber company land that had always been free-range for wildlife and generally open to public access was gradually being sold, fragmented, leased, gated and locked up.

Hunters who treated timber company land as national forests were starting to get shut out.

In 2007, the Washington Department of Natural Resources initiated the largest state land exchange movement in Washington history to reduce checkerboard ownership and reduce costs and uncertainty for state timber management.

In the first of several deals, DNR traded 20,970 acres of state lands scattered in 15 counties in return for 82,548 acres of former Boise-Cascade timberland then owned by Western Pacific Timber.

In all, about 240,000 acres were involved in proposed exchanges among the DNR, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and several corporate landholders in that period.

“In my entire career, I haven’t seen a bigger threat to wildlife and wildlife access than the changes in corporate timber lands,” said Jeff Tayer, who was the Fish and Wildlife Department’s regional manager in Yakima at that time. “Hunting access could be lost overnight.

“The situation could be even worse if development in the checkerboard lands forced us to lift some seasonal road closures, such as those in the Oak Creek Wildlife Area where we feed elk during winter.”

About half of the Yakima herd’s 9,500 animals don’t have anywhere else to go during some winters, since nearly 100 miles of 8-foot-high fences have been built in the region to keep them off the developed lands that occupy much of their natural winter range.

Numerous groups, including the Washington Wildlife and Recreation Coalition, have partnered in helping form blocks of public-accessible land along the east slope of the Cascades.

The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation has partnered with agencies and groups in land deals to conserve 123,000 acres on the east slope of the Cascades, said Jennifer Doherty, the foundation’s land program manager. “Those lands have all been taken over by agencies since RMEF’s policy is to conserve and enhance wildlife habitat rather than own it,” she said.

The Nature Conservancy also has secured lands that were later taken over by other public managers, but the group also is managing large blocks of land on its own.

In June, the nonprofit purchased 1,280 acres of Plum Creek land in the Manastash area west of Ellensburg and transferred it to the state Fish and Wildlife Department to be managed as part of the L.T. Murray Wildlife Area.

With this new 47,921-acre purchase, the Conservancy will own 102,315 acres in Washington, including its complex of properties in Douglas County.

The new purchase includes 390 miles of rivers and streams and touches three major lakes – Keechelus, Kachess, Cle Elum – headwaters of the Yakima River, a premier state trout and salmon fishery.

“We plan to continue to provide access for hunting, fishing and other recreation,” said James Schroeder, the Conservancy’s Eastern Washington conservation director.

“The Nature Conservancy has a history of allowing hunting on our lands on the Queets and Clearwater rivers on the Washington Coast, at our 30,000-acre preserve in Moses Coulee, and on many Nature Conservancy properties across the country.”

In Montana, where the Conservancy has helped conserve about a million acres, staff also recognizes the sportsman’s heritage.

In 2008, the nonprofit purchased 310,586 acres of Plum Creek commercial timberland from Plum Creek timber company, including land along Fish Creek near Alberton. Since then, the organization has been transferring the land to other managers such as the Forest Service and the state Fish, Wildlife and Parks Department.

“These lands are incredibly important to Montana hunters and anglers,” said Chris Bryant, the Conservancy’s state land protection specialist, referring to the new acquisitions.

“The hunting units that include the Clearwater-Blackfoot project area see over 7,000 deer and elk hunters every year. We want to make sure that access remains intact. We’ll manage the land according to our Open Lands Policy, which allows for camping, hunting and fishing among many other uses.”

In Washington, the deal includes a lot of higher-elevation forests that are not ideal for timber production, but are really valuable for habitat and recreation, Plum Creek spokeswoman Kate Tate said.

“We have a strong history of partnering with conservation groups like The Nature Conservancy,” Tate said. “Since 1989, we have achieved more than 700,000 acres of conservation outcomes in Montana and Washington.”

While the timber company still has large holdings in Montana, it will only own 28,000 acres in Washington when the sale is finalized, Tate said.

Mike Stevens, the Conservancy’s Washington state director, termed forest management and public access as “key issues upfront.

“Long-term options could include state or federal ownership or private conservation ownership, or a new model like a community forest.”

In the short term, Stevens said the lands will have the same public access for recreation as they had under Plum Creek.

The Nature Conservancy expects to continue to pay Kittitas County property taxes, although the details will need to be worked out with the county assessor after the sale.

“We do intend to do active forest management on the property, under a forest plan, so what we would expect is no tax change to the county,” Stevens said.

Land-management options in Montana also will take years to develop.

“This isn’t just Seeley Lake’s backyard; it’s Missoula’s backyard as well,” said Chris Bryant, the Conservancy’s Montana land manager.

“It’s almost adjacent to the Rattlesnake Wilderness, and it touches some of the (Confederated Salish and Kootenai) Tribal Primitive Area by Jocko Lake.

“This landscape has cultural value for traditional resources, Native American uses, current hunting, and recreation. It’s a really important landscape for people, as well as wildlife. Now we’ve got to figure how to balance all that in a long-term ownership strategy.”

Founded in 1951, The Nature Conservancy has chapters in all 50 states and works around the globe to protect ecologically important lands and waters for nature and people.