Big land donation made to national forests

Yesterday, the Cascades Conservation Partnership gave 640 acres of privately bought land to the U.S. Forest Service -- the largest donation of its kind since the Great Depression.

The parcel was bought from the Plum Creek Timber Co. with $1.8 million of donated money. The land, located south of Cle Elum near Interstate 90, includes 200 acres of old growth forest and one mile of the north fork of Taneum Creek.

"This is a big deal folks," said Sonny O'Neal, supervisor of Okanogan and Wenatchee national forests, as a ceremonial land deed was given to him yesterday.

Since May 2000, the Cascades Conservation Partnership has secured protection for more than 10,000 acres in a region stretching from U.S. Highway 2 down to Mount Rainier, and some parcels near Mount St. Helens.

In less than a year, the group has raised $5.9 million from more than 3,400 individual donors. Another $26.3 million was awarded from the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund, thanks in large part to Republican Sen. Slade Gorton, Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Bremerton, and other local members of Congress.

The goal of the group is to buy 75,000 privately owned acres, requiring $125 million, with $100 million coming from the federal government and the remainder from private donors. This year the partnership hopes to get $33 million from Congress and raise $12 million on its own.

All of the land will become part of national forests, which legally can be logged though recent administrations have moved away from this use. Environmentalists promised they'd be keeping a close watch on their donated land to make sure it is not harmed.

Fred Munson, director of the Cascades Conservation Partnership, said the organization is unique for combining private funds with federal dollars, which worked to their advantage when lobbying Congress.

"We're not saying, 'Gimme, gimme.' We're doing our part," Munson said.

Group members are hopeful they will reach their goals despite Gorton's recent departure from the Senate and the downturn in the stock market; approximately $3.5 million of the private donations raised so far came from the high-tech sector.

Time is of the essence; chainsaws are buzzing as environmentalists scramble for dollars to fund the three-year project.

Dave Crooker, general manager for Plum Creek's Cascade region, said the timber company is hopeful the group would raise the money in time.

But "if the money doesn't come ... we're going to operate on them (the sought after acres)," Crooker said.

As money is raised, the group is picking and choosing which parcels of land to buy first. They look at which pieces contain old growth, salmon streams and hiking trails, and weigh that against which ones are slated for the chopping block first.

"It's quite a dance," Munson said. The timber companies that they're negotiating with, primarily Plum Creek, "are being cooperative on one hand, but on the other hand, they're running a business and cutting down trees we don't want them to cut down."

With its project, the group wants to create corridors that allow for populations of wildlife to mix, mingle and procreate. For animals to thrive there needs to be contiguous blocks of land, not convoluted paths connecting isolated parcels that have been protected from development and timber companies, environmentalists said.

P-I reporter Lisa Stiffler can be reached at 206-448-8042 or lisastiffler@seattle-pi.com