The Klickitat River is spectacular: Make a trip to the river and you’ll see why its lower 10.8 miles were designated as Wild and Scenic. Columbia Land Trust acquired its first land here in 2001; since then, we’ve markedly expanded the amount of land we care for. Our most ambitious restoration project? We removed eight miles of an old road from the Klickitat River shore, allowing the river to reclaim its historic floodplain for the first time in 80 years. We also care for land along the Little White Salmon, a 19-mile-long Columbia River tributary to the west, which courses through similar terrain and is a go-to hotspot for whitewater kayakers.
Both the Klickitat and the Little White Salmon Rivers are critical for native plants and wildlife: The area’s Oregon white oak woodlands and pine-oak forests support more than 200 species, including Lewis’s woodpeckers and the state-threatened western gray squirrel. Millennia-old runs of salmon and steelhead spawn and grow stronger in these rivers. Our challenge is protecting this paradisaical area from the very real threat of development while finding conservation solutions that allow land-connected livelihoods, such as farming, ranching, and forestry, to continue.
Columbia Land Trust is ending 2018 on a high note, conserving two properties—totaling 360 acres—that serve as ‘wings’ of crucial wildlife habitat to the 3,200 acres of forestland we permanently protected earlier this year. By purchasing these two properties from SDS Lumber Company, one of which includes nearly a mile of river frontage, the Land…
Read MoreGrowth, change, and new ways of life — welcome to our Spring issue of Fieldbook. This issue, we hear stories of what it means to have a place, and take a look at what our places look like — from tiny homes, to rock walls, to trees both dead and alive — our diverse places…
Read MorePOSTED SEPTEMBER 13, 2018 Columbia Land Trust has re-opened to the public its haul road property along the Klickitat River. The Land Trust follows the Washington Department of Natural Resources’ Industrial Fire Precaution Levels (IFPL) system. The area was recently downgraded to IFPL level 2. Thank you for working with us during the summer fire season…
Read MoreColumbia Land Trust has deep roots in Southwest Washington and Clark County. While today we work in 14 counties on both the Washinton and Oregon sides of the river, we were born from a desire to conserve land in Southwest Washington that was being developed at an alarming rate. Today, we’re experiencing an all-too-familiar sense…
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