Its conservation also marks a significant step in building a resilient, well-managed landscape across ownerships, providing connectivity with the adjacent Shasta Trinity and Klamath National Forests as well as another PFT conserved Property, Butte Creek Ranch. Thanks to a generous investment by California’s Wildlife Conservation Board at its November 2023 meeting, the project will be completed at year’s end. The Shasta Timberlands Working Forest project, a conservation collaboration between Pacific Forest Trust, landowner TC&I Shasta, LLC, and its forest manager, Campbell Global, LLC, provides an extraordinary opportunity to protect essential wildlife habitats for at least 250 animal species, as well as protecting watersheds that feed into the McCloud River and the Klamath basin.

“We are proud to partner with PFT on this working forest conservation easement, which has lasting public benefits for wildlife, water flows for people and fish,and climate change mitigation—all while maintaining jobs in the woods and enhancing recreational opportunities.” says John Gilleland, Chief Executive Officer of Campbell Global.

The Shasta Timberlands Working Forest Conservation Easement demonstrates active conservation of working forests, providing much more than a picturesque panorama; it is a key connecting piece in the grand tapestry of northern California’s natural world and part of sustaining myriad life services to all of California’s inhabitants, from people to imperiled fish, frogs, and mammals. This span of diverse forest and alpine meadows play an essential role as watersheds, habitats and places for people to work and earn a sustainable livelihood in forest management as well as recreate.

The decision to protect this ecological treasure through a Working Forest Conservation Easement is a rare opportunity: one that allows for the strategic integration of public and private working lands, including the 42,000 acres that PFT has already conserved in in the Mt. Shasta Headwaters.

Promoting climate resiliency is also a key goal of the project. The forest will be actively managed to ensure that it will not only adapt to a changing climate, but also improve its essential functions as carbon sinks and watersheds. Increasing the carbon stocks of its diverse conifer forests: Shasta red fir, white fir, ponderosa pine, among others, is a specific goal, and can be achieved through management that focuses on the restoration of a more natural forest structure, species composition and age range. This management will also help reduce the risk of large and catastrophic wildfires.

Unlike other regions facing intense climate change stress, Shasta Timberlands and the larger Klamath-Cascade region are projected to remain cooler and wetter than much of California, thus providing continuity of the habitats and mentioned watershed functions. The gray wolf, Pacific fisher, and Pacific marten are but a few of the imperiled animals that call this land home. The conservation easement establishes nearly 2700 acres for the sole purpose of supporting their habitat values, helping California reach its ambitious and wide-reaching “30×30” goals, which seek to protect 30% of the state by 2030!

As Pacific Forest Trust celebrates its 30th year, Shasta Timberlands conservation project is a symbol of our organization’s unyielding commitment to collaborative and tangible climate and conservation solutions. It contributes significantly to PFT’s enduring efforts to reweave a crucial ecosystem despite its fracturing from diverse ownership across multiple private and public lands ownership boundaries. Its completion guarantee both the longevity of private and the public benefits of well managed private forestlands connectivity of the roughly 10 million acres that surround the working forest on all sides.