Steamboat Conservation Partnership Formed to Protect Wild Areas Here at Home

SCP-logoThe Griffin Neighborhood Association is forming a unique partnership with the Capitol Land Trust to help conserve special natural areas in the Steamboat Peninsula area.

Capitol Land Trust is an Olympia-based nonprofit group with an impressive track record of working amicably with private land owners to protect key scenic and wildlife areas. During the past twenty years, the trust has permanently secured more than 3,000 acres and ten miles of South Sound shorelines through purchase or easement agreements.

By investing in this partnership with the land trust, Steamboat residents will ensure that the land trust will focus considerable time and expertise on exploring the best ways to protect wild shorelines, forests, meadows and wetlands particularly critical to the environmental health, rural charm and beauty of the area.

To help make the partnership as successful as possible, Steamboat residents are being asked to raise $15,000 a year for the next five years to help cover land trust costs. Any donations will be welcomed, but the Griffin Neighborhood Association is particularly seeking generous donors willing to commit as much as $300 a year. This opportunity is unlike most tax-deductible donations in that the money you give goes directly toward your community.

The land trust can be trusted to use the money wisely. It is a small, efficient organization with a reputation for making big things happen. The benefits of its work can already be felt out here, seeing how it has protected more than a thousand acres in the Eld Inlet watershed, including critical areas in the Wynne Farm, Schirm Farm and Sanderson Cove areas. Click here to see local areas already protected by the Capital Land Trust.

The land trust operates in a friendly, non-confrontational way that simply works. As a result, it has what few environmental organizations have — the blessings of both Republicans and Democrats. One of its most outspoken advocates is former Secretary of State Ralph Munro. Click here to read the piece entitled, “Capitol Land Trust: A Model That Works.”

As a show of enthusiastic faith in this new Steamboat Conservation Partnership, Griffin Neighborhood Association board members will pool and present an initial round of donations to the Capitol Land Trust at the July 11 summer picnic at the Prosperity Grange. Eric Erler, the land trust’s executive director, will be speaking at the event and available to field questions.

To learn more about the land trust go to www.capitollandtrust.org. To request more information about the Steamboat Conservation Partnership, contact Griffin Neighborhood Association members Peter Reid (867-0919), Elizabeth Roderick (866-9797) or Jack Sisco (866-0240). Click here to visit our information page.

UPDATED: Click here to read an article in the Olympian regarding the creation of the Steamboat Conservation Partnership.

Image above from the web site of the Capitol Land Trust.

Posted in Capitol Land Trust, Steamboat Conservation Partnership.