Mountcrest Working Forest protected
We’re proud to announce that after 5 years of collaboration, a broad partnership has protected the 2,085-acre Mountcrest Working Forest through a conservation easement over the largest non-industrial forest near Ashland, Oregon. Mountcrest has been managed by the Parsons family for nearly 100 years, sits on the historic Siskiyou Pass, hosts part of the Pacific Crest Trail, is home to numerous imperiled species, and forms a key wildlife bridge between the Rogue River Siskiyou National Forest and the Cascade Siskiyou National Monument. A conservation easement now protects 1771 acres that will remain in private ownership as a working forest, which complements PFT’s 2017 acquisition from Mountcrest of 314 acres now added to the National Monument.
During a time when management of public lands and resources is mired in political battles, the Mountcrest Forest project shows that private owners of working forests can provide huge public benefits.
The Parsons family voluntarily sold the conservation easement to Pacific Forest Trust to ensure Mountcrest Forest will never be broken up or developed, and that it will continue to be owned and well managed for timber, wildlife habitat, and watershed values. The easement is also unique in that it is a first in Oregon for public agencies to fund a conservation easement held by a non-profit land trust that both ensures sustainable timber harvest and protects significant habitat for threatened and endangered species.
In a story distributed nationwide by the AP, reporter Mark Freeman of the News Tribune (Medford, OR) wrote:
The family’s approach has created healthy habitat for rare threatened and endangered animals, as well as clean water for wild salmon, in 1,771 acres smack-dab within the land bridge between the Klamath, Siskiyou and Cascade mountains.
And it’s going to stay that way.
A new and unique $2.5 million conservation easement arranged by The Pacific Forest Trust and funded primarily with public money ensures the forest will remain in timber production but that it won’t be broken up or developed and that the Parsons family ethic will govern here in perpetuity.
…. Five years in the making, the easement creates a model for how private, working forests can simultaneously be managed for the public benefits of better wildlife habitat and watershed health – stewardship values largely left to public lands.
- Learn more on the Mountcrest Working Forest project page.
- From 9/21/16: Innovative Conservation Partnership Gains Federal Funds to Protect Threatened Species and Excellent Forestry on Siskiyou Crest
- From the Summer 2015 issue of ForestLife: Conservation Easement Protects a Living Heritage of Stewardship
- Learn more about how Pacific Forest Trust works with landowners to conserve forests.
- Download a fact sheet about the Mountcrest Working Forest.
- Read the press release about the Mountcrest easement.