About Pacific Forest Trust

We sustain America's forests for all their public benefits of wood, water, wildlife, and people's well-being in cooperation with landowners and communities.

Our Approach

Since 1993, Pacific Forest Trust has epitomized innovation, daring, and a savvy understanding of market forces to create new economic incentives that reward private forest owners for conserving their lands and practicing sustainable forestry.

We’re a visionary think-and-do-tank of scientists, conservationists, policy wonks, entrepreneurs, and outdoor enthusiasts that have helped shape forest conservation and climate policy. Working closely with other forest stakeholders, from landowners to agencies to environmental nonprofit partners, we create and advance high-leverage, catalytic strategies that engage the commitment, imagination, and resources of many individuals, businesses, and organizations to make it easier and more rewarding to do good things for the forests—and forest landowners—on which we all depend.

The only conservation organization focused on private forests in California, Oregon, and Washington, we’ve conserved more than 270,000 acres of vital forestland regionally, holding easements on more than 105,000 acres. Our work has been recognized for its excellence by government agencies, philanthropies, and non-profit organizations.

Our Vision

What We Do

Governance

We have conserved over 270,000 forest acres.

How we protect forests

We advance forest and climate policies.

View our climate solutions

History

Pacific Forest Trust grew from the realization that economics shaped the forest landscape. Forests were valued for timber and land development—a reality that led to the unintended consequence of forest loss and depletion.

Pacific Forest Trust saw that by harnessing financial markets, it could promote practices that would result in more abundant forests with healthier ecosystems. We wanted to develop economic incentives that would reward landowners for their conservation and stewardship efforts. We also saw an opportunity to apply groundbreaking new findings in forest ecology to forest management in ways that would benefit both landowners and forests.

“We wanted to start an organization where people met on the same side of the table, instead of across barricades. Maybe this all seemed radical, improbable. But our ideas began to click with many people: forest owners, managers, investors, and conservationists who joined with us to form the Pacific Forest Trust.”

— Connie Best, Co-CEO

Recent Accolades

We are Accredited

We are dedicated to preserving forests for all of the public benefits they provide. We not only pioneer incentives and resources to facilitate regional and national forest conservation efforts, we are an accredited land trust.

Accreditation & Annual Reports