Fourteen land groups — including two from Peninsula — form collective to protect shorelines

Published 12:01 am Tuesday, December 30, 2014

SEATTLE — The North Olympic Land Trust of Clallam County and the Jefferson Land Trust of Jefferson County are among the 14 organizations that have formed a new coalition, the Shoreline Conservation Collaborative.

The goal of the group, which finalized its agreement this month, is to permanently protect 150 shoreline properties and restore an additional 30 shoreline areas in the next decade, said Hannah Clark, executive director of the Seattle-based Washington Association of Land Trusts, which created the collaborative.

“Our members saw a significant opportunity to work together to protect Puget Sound,” Clark said.

Each organization in the collaborative will work separately but support each other and plan together, said Erik Kingfisher, president of Washington Association of Land Trusts and stewardship director of Jefferson Land Trust, which is based in Port Townsend.

“By having a collaborative, this community of organizations working together on the shoreline, it helps us to bring in the context of a regional significance,” he said, adding that it is not a lobbying group.

“We all love to spend time on our wild and undeveloped beaches — it’s part of what makes this such an amazing place to live,” Kingfisher said.

“The shorelines are also magnets for development, and there are some shorelines that are simply more important for people, wildlife and clean water than they are as potential development properties,” he added.

Land trusts protect property from development through acquisitions and conservation agreements.

“All of the projects we’ll be working on are arranged voluntarily,” Kingfisher said.

“We work with willing landowners on a voluntary basis to acquire and/or restore properties,” he added.

In many cases, the work of the groups’ members will provide the public access to shorelines that now are inaccessible, Kingfisher said, while also protecting the areas’ ecologies.

“The shoreline of Puget Sound may look pristine and accessible, but is neither,” Clark said.

“This unique and irreplaceable natural treasure has been in decline for years, with thousands of acres altered, contaminated or destroyed, and less than 12 percent open to the public to enjoy.”

The collaborative,which has worked on the agreement since May, counts as its first success the November purchase by the North Olympic Land Trust of 280 acres of shoreline abutting the Lyre River west of Port Angeles.

The purchase for $3.15 million, much of it funded by grants, protects an area on the Strait of Juan de Fuca that is important for several salmon species as well as other wildlife, according to Tom Sanford, executive director of the North Olympic Land Trust.

The land includes the estuary at the mouth of the Lyre River, streams, wetlands, tidelands, kelp beds and bluff-backed beaches, as well as a large upland area with a diverse forest at various ages of growth.

It is expected to be open to the public by mid-2015.

Visitors will be able to park about a mile from the beach and walk in for such day-use activities as bird watching, wildlife viewing, surfing, picnicking and beach walking.

The Jefferson Land Trust, which has protected about 2 miles of shoreline in Jefferson County, points to Dabob Bay as an example of the shoreline protection work it does.

“The ecosystem as a whole is one of the least developed bays or estuaries in all of Puget Sound,” Kingfisher said.

“It’s an undeveloped shoreline with a lot of native plants. It’s the type of place we’d like to see stay that way,” he said.

Kingfisher said that the land trust has protected about 4,000 feet of shoreline in Dabob Bay through seven conservation agreements projects since 1994.

Other organizations in the collaborative are Bainbridge Island Land Trust, Capitol Land Trust, Forterra, Great Peninsula Conservancy, Lummi Island Heritage Trust, Nisqually Land Trust, San Juan Preservation Trust, Skagit Land Trust, the Trust for Public Land, Cashon-Maury Island Land Trust, Whatcom Land Trust and Whidbey Camano Land Trust.