Forest Flash: Working Forest Conservation Easements work, action needed for Elliott State Forest, and making the match for forests.
In Pacific Forest Trust’s e-newsletter, Forest Flash, we send you the most recent PFT news and updates on forests, clean water, climate, and wildlife, no more than once or twice a month. Subscribe here.
Good news from Green Gorge
Pacific Forest Trust is pleased to announce that Green Gorge Working Forest, located in Mendocino County, California, along the Garcia River just inland from the coast, has now been permanently protected.
This picturesque 341-acre forest was dubbed “Green Gorge” to honor the canyon with its deep redwood forest rising steeply from the beautiful floodplain. Read more about Green Gorge.
With the final i’s dotted and t’s crossed, PFT has conserved more than 285,000 acres, including more than 110,000 acres in 33 easements in Oregon and California.
Pictured above: Hugh Brady leads PFT staff and board on a tour of Green Gorge in July.
Your generous contributions are making the match!
Thanks to those of you who have responded to our year-end match opportunity! We are already more than 3/4 of the way to our $30,000 goal, thanks to a generous gift from VanEck.
Your support between now and December 31st at midnight helps protect forests for all those who depend on them. With your help, Pacific Forest Trust safeguards water supplies, provides homes for wildlife, supplies wood and jobs for local communities, and ensures that forests are a growing solution to our climate crisis. Make the match today!
Taking action to protect Elliott State Forest
PFT is urging Oregon to urge this precious resource be protected with a conservation easement
Last Tuesday, the Oregon State Land Board met to discuss the direction of the decoupling of the Elliott State Forest (ESF) from the Common School Fund, reviewing the proposal from Oregon State University (OSU) to manage it as a research forest to understand impacts of climate change. Following earlier controversy concerning the proposed sale of the ESF, the state had issued a $100 million bond to protect the key values of this irreplaceable 82,500 acre resource, Oregon’s oldest state forest, while also seeking ways to decouple its management from the support of the Common School Fund.
While the bonds have been sold, no tangible evidence of how the protection of the Elliott will be implemented has yet been demonstrated. PFT and other advocates urged the Land Board to use this $100 million commitment by the public to protect the forest under a Working Forest Conservation Easement (WFCE). (Live in Oregon? Write a letter to the State Land Board today.)
A WFCE will assure the public that this forest will be permanently conserved and well-managed for all its public benefits and values. WFCEs are a proven, effective and enforceable tool that would guide future management to enhance wildlife, water, and climate, while also enabling and underpinning a sustainable forest economy.
Read PFT’s letter to the State Land Board.
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