What We Do
Our Conservation Priorities and Where We Work
The Willamette River Preservation Trust is an independent 501c3 non profit land trust, led by folks with significant experience conserving the lands and waters of the Willamette River Basin. The trust operates independently and represents a wide area of the Willamette River Basin.
The conservation need in the Willamette system is significant. There are myriad streams, rivers, oak woodlands, wet prairies, upland prairies and more in need of protection. For example, only 1% of the valley’s historic wet prairie remains. The Trust owns three key wet prairie properties, each with a vibrant story of conservation action, and also restoration.
Over the past 150 years, the Willamette Basin has been drastically altered, with massive reductions in natural habitat. Our goal is to move the needle in the other direction, holding lands for conservation indefinitely. Conserving lands and waters in perpetuity, “forever and forever,” is the goal. To do so we:
Purchase or receive donated ecologically healthy lands for permanent protection.
Purchase or receive donated land in need of habitat restoration where we can then take restoration action.
Enable people to learn about these places via educational trips by land and water (walking tours, canoe and kayak trips and more).
Create access to these places, when it makes sense, for low-impact recreation. This includes public access for hiking, bird watching, and just enjoying the peace and quiet of nature. Public access has to make sense for individual sites and their constraints.
In time our approach will also include conservation easements, enabling private landowners to conserve their lands even as ownership changes.
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The Trust works in a good portion of the Willamette River Basin. Instead of publishing a map that shows a “territory,” lets just say that we respond to ecological needs in the Willamette River Basin. We focus on key river, creek, wet prairie, and oak woodland habitats. We also focus on Willamette Valley pine forest habitat and more. Some of these are very much intermixed.
We respectfully defer to the land trusts based in Corvallis, and one in McMinnville in their home counties. We also communicate with these trusts about opportunities in their home counties as well.
Like other land trusts in Oregon, our work focuses on Conservation Opportunity Areas and Wildlife Corridor habitat as defined by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. That said, there are quality habitats that can be protected outside of these areas as well. We also place a high value on river floodplains whether the mainstem Willamette from Harrisburg to Portland, or smaller waterways such as Oak Creek, the Santiam system, the Molalla River, the Pudding River, and beyond.
Wether we are working in the heart of the Valley, or the Coastal or Cascade foothills, it is about the need in regard to these habitats that matters most.
Where We Work
