Making a difference through collective action
Over 14,000 people in the Portland Metro area have transformed their outdoor spaces into a backyard habitat that supports bees and pollinators. It's a meaningful action that has real impact.
One yard at a time
One of the most powerful ways you can support nature starts right in your own backyard.
Every native plant you put in the ground helps birds and pollinators thrive. These creatures aren’t just beautiful to watch — they’re essential. They form the foundation of the food web that supports life, including ours.
As urban and suburban areas grow, natural habitats shrink, making it harder for birds and pollinators to survive. But there’s good news: we can reverse this trend by planting native species.
Through our Backyard Habitat Certification Program, co-managed with the Bird Alliance of Oregon, we help you turn your yard into functioning habitat— places where bees thrive, butterflies return, and migratory birds find a resting point.
Yard by yard, we’ve grown a movement with over 14,000 properties across the Portland-Vancouver Metro region. That scale matters because birds and pollinators can move more freely, finding food and shelter from one yard to the next.
And the impact doesn’t stop in the city. These backyard habitats link directly with Columbia Land Trust’s landscape scale conservation work beyond the metro area — strengthening vital ecosystems across the region. We’re building corridors for wildlife. That matters here, along the Pacific Flyway, where hundreds of thousands of migratory birds pass through each year.