SAN JUAN PRESERVATION TRUST
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SAN JUAN PRESERVATION TRUST |
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Paul Allen’s foundation gives $300,000 to Trust’s Waldron Island preserveA $300,000 grant from the Paul G. Allen Forest Protection Foundation has helped the San Juan Preservation Trust buy 205 acres on Waldron Island’s Disney Mountain. The property includes over a mile of shoreline along President Channel immediately northwest of Orcas Island. "The San Juan Preservation Trust’s acquisition on Waldron Island will add protection to significant wildlife habitat in the San Juan Islands," said Jody Patton, executive director of The Paul G. Allen Forest Protection Foundation. "We are pleased to support the Trust and help save this acreage, and applaud their ongoing preservation efforts." Allen, the philanthropic billionaire, established the foundation to support projects that acquire forestlands and protect them from development and exploitation. The Waldron property encompasses many treasured features of the San Juan Islands’ landscape. Dramatic headlands and pocket beaches, grassy balds and rock outcrops, an array of wildflowers, forested habitat for raptors and songbirds are some of the elements that comprise this new addition to the Trust’s system of nature preserves. The culmination of nearly two years of planning and a 10-month capital campaign to raise more than $1.5 million to complete the project, this acquisition is the most ambitious in the Trust’s 21-year history. "The opportunity to preserve a parcel of this size with water to ridgetop habitat is increasingly rare in the San Juans," said Bob Myhr, executive director of The Trust. "We had to act quickly to save this unique habitat from logging and eventual subdivision. This parcel is also especially valuable for preservation because it adjoins the 209-acre Bitte Baer Preserve owned by The Nature Conservancy and thus establishes a 400-acre sanctuary for our native flora and fauna." The Waldron property was identified as a project of national significance for preservation when it was featured in USPIRG/Defenders of Wildlife’s "Saving America’s Geography of Hope" in 1999. The Preservation Trust received support from hundreds of individual members of the Trust. Private foundations and conservation agencies helped complete the project. In addition to the donation from the Paul G. Allen Forest Protection Foundation, the Trust received a $200,000 Challenge Grant from The Kresge Foundation, a grant from the Neukom Family Foundation, plus support from The Nature Conservancy of Washington, Horizons Foundation and the Seattle, Orcas Island, and San Juan Island Community Foundations. The San Juan County Land Bank joined with the Trust to help preserve this vital habitat. The Land Bank participated in the project through its $200,000 purchase of a conservation easement on 171 acres of the property. Together, the Trust and Land Bank stewardship programs will assure preservation of Disney Mountain in perpetuity. Myhr observes: "The Trust has many generous supporters who know our work and want us to do more now while we still have opportunities to save key pieces of land from the tremendous pressures of growth and change that we face in the islands. Our success with our Waldron Island project is a major step in that direction. We are already looking at new projects to preserve the best natural and scenic values of the San Juans." |
San Juan Preservation TrustWith the new Disney Mountain Preserve, The Trust now owns 20 nature preserves on 10 islands throughout the San Juans. Access is by permission. The Trust manages its system of preserves through its stewardship program -- funded, in part, by annual member donations and gifts to The Trust Stewardship and Endowment Funds. For more information, contact
Bob Myhr Executive Director
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