Stewardship Initatives
Once our precious lands are conserved, they need continual monitoring, restoration and stewardship. Forterra has an ownership interest in over 13,500 acres of diverse landscapes within King, Kittitas, Pierce, Snohomish and Mason Counties, as well as estuary land on the Washington coast. Of this total, we own 7,409 acres and hold either a conservation easement or a stewardship easement on the remaining 6,284 acres. We monitor our conservation easements annually and work with landowners to maximize conservation values while maintaining the uses permitted on the property.
Work For You
Since 1989, Forterra has offered a full spectrum of professional services to not-for-profit groups, businesses and government clients across the region. Our professional staff is committed to providing clients quality work from project conception to completion.
Employing Forterra's services will help you accomplish your objectives and align your efforts with the largest conservation and community building efforts of our time, The Cascade and Olympic Agendas.
Property Acquisition
Forterra works with landowners, local governments and developers to conserve wild and working lands.
Build Community
Forterra works with leaders and residents to make our cities and towns great places to live, work and raise our families. We recognize that by creating great communities, we can protect working and wild rural landscapes.
Conservation Initiatives
Forterra is working to conserve 1 million acres of land across Washington
Forterra is a leader in land conservation. We employ both traditional and cutting edge tools to help conserve land through out the Central Cascades and across the Olympic Peninsula. Learn more about our current conservation iniatives by clicking the links below.
Green Cities
Forterra’s Green Cities Program implements public-private partnerships to restore and maintain urban forests, natural areas, and greenspaces. Explore our work below and learn how to get involved in your community.
Conserve Land
In over twenty years, we’ve conserved more than 182,000 acres of important urban green space, working lands, and rivers, streams and forests throughout the region.
We employ traditional conservation tools such as land purchases, donations, conservation easements and ownership agreements. We’re also implementing innovative conservation tools like Transfer of Development rights and the Landscape Conservation and Landscape Infrastructure Program, a tool Forterra led through the 2011 legislative session.
Get Involved
The power to shape the future comes from you.
Forterra relies on the support of people like you to accomplish its goals of creating a healthy, sustainable, economically and environmentally sound region. There are many opportunities to get involved. You can make a donation, volunteer your time at an event, advocate for important issues on behalf of Forterra and more!
What We Do
Forterra is advancing an innovative new approach to conservation and community building.
Forterra is advancing an innovative new approach to conservation that encourages collaboration across all sectors and balances environmental, social and economic needs. We emphasize the link between vibrant cities and healthy rural lands and use creative new ways to protect land on a scale never seen before. Our efforts include conserving land, building better communities, advancing new policies providing a spectrum of professional services.
Who We Are
Forterra is the largest conservation and community building organization in the Northwest.
Forterra's mission is to act with immediacy to protect, enhance and steward our region's most precious resources—its communities and its landscapes. Filling a unique niche as the largest conservation and community building organization in Washington State, we are working to build the foundations for our sustainable environmental and economic futures in the face of a rapidly growing population. For over 20 years, Forterra has successfully led efforts to conserve more than 180,000 acres of forests, farms, shorelines, parks and natural areas and restore critical landscapes.
Guided by a belief that broad inclusion garners broader success, Forterra is advancing an innovative new approach to conservation that encourages collaboration across all sectors and balances environmental, social and economic needs. We emphasize the link between vibrant cities and healthy rural lands and use creative new ways to protect land on a scale never seen before.
Where We Work
Forterra works to build community and conserve land across Washington
Forterra's work stretches from the farmland and river canyons of Yakima all the way to the estuaries and forests of Washington’s coastline. We are committed to smart urban policy and urban forest restoration in the Puget Sound region’s many wonderful cities. We are working with communities across the Olympic Peninsula to create a sustainable plan for the next 100 years. The scope of our work has expanded dramatically over the past several decades, the circle in which we map “our region” continues to grow, but whether we’re conserving land in Mt. Vernon or building community gardens in Tacoma, Forterra’s mission to further economic and environmental sustainablity remains right at the heart of everywhere we work.
Cedar River Restoration
The Cedar River is one of the most cherished and historically significant waterways in the Puget Sound region. It contains ancestral homeland, popular recreational resources, is the source of drinking water for millions in Seattle’s greater metropolitan area and has some of the best remaining habitat in the greater Lake Washington Watershed. Forterra has been committed to improving the ecological health of the Cedar since 2005, and is contracted by the Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) to manage the restoration of riverfront properties in the lower Cedar River below Landsburg Dam. That land was acquired through the city’s 50-year Cedar River Habitat Conservation Plan.
In 2010, our partnership joined forces with the Friends of the Cedar River Watershed and the King County Noxious Weed Control Program to initiate the Cedar River Stewardship in Action Program (SiA), a comprehensive, landscape-scale approach to restoration on the lower Cedar River. The SiA offers fully coordinated invasive plant abatement (primarily knotweed control), native plant installations on public and private lands along the river, and outreach and educational events.
The SiA is one of the few programs on the Cedar to collaborate directly with landowners. We design and install planting projects that restore native plant communities to private riverfront parcels. In return, the landowner becomes a representative steward, sharing their experience with the community and occasionally hosting tours of their property or speaking publically on behalf of the program. The long term success of the SiA program and others working to restore ecological integrity to the Cedar depends on diversity within partnership groups and private landowners are essential members of the team. The SiA program aims to convey the message that everyone has a role to play in the rehabilitation and conservation of precious natural resources on the Cedar River.
Duwamish Hill Preserve
The Duwamish Hill Preserve is a 10.5 acre parcel of historical, cultural and ecological significant land in Tukwila. Thanks to the actions of many partners including the Friends of the Hill, Forterra and City of Tukwila, the property was purchased in 2004 and has been in active restoration ever since. The Duwamish Hill Preserve serves as an outdoor classroom for students, a gathering place for restoration volunteers, a culturally significant location for Native Americans and an example of a successful partnership between community members and public and private partners.
Creation of the Preserve
In 2001, Forterra, the City of Tukwila and local citizen group Friends of the Hill formed a partnership to work towards the preservation of a 10.5 acre parcel slated for industrial development. The land was successfully acquired in 2004 by the Forterra (then Cascade Land Conservancy) and the City of Tukwila. In September 2010, after many years of hard work by volunteers, the Duwamish Hill Preserve was officially opened to the public. The preserve now includes an outdoor classroom area, established trail and continued restoration opportunities for volunteers. The Duwamish Hill Preserve is managed as a public open space preserve dedicated to the conservation and enhancement of its rich Native American cultural history, ecological importance and community impact. Funding for acquisition and restoration of this property has been supported by grants from many generous contributors. {anchor link}
Natural and Cultural History
Due to its elevated position above the Duwamish River, the Hill offered a vantage point from which Native Americans could watch for incoming groups and communicate with fellow tribe members along the Duwamish River Valley. Additionally, the Hill is associated with the southern Puget Sound Salish oral tradition as the key location in the stories collectively known as the “Epic of the Winds.”
The hill from which the preserve gets its name is a glacial remnant and within the preserve many species of flora and fauna that are rarely seen along the banks of the Duwamish River can be found.
Restoration
Thousands of volunteers have contributed countless hours of work removing invasive weed and planting native trees and shrubs. The Friends of the Hill make up a core group of dedicated volunteers that host monthly restoration work parties at the Hill and offer local community members a chance to contribute to the restoration of this amazing preserve. For more information on when these restoration volunteer opportunities take place, please visit our events page. For more information or questions please email volunteer@forterra.org.
Educational Opportunities
The Hill is an excellent outdoor classroom. In collaboration with local teachers, administrators and community members, Forterra is working to encourage and facilitate educational programming by hosting field trips and creating curriculum centered around the unique features of the hill.
Forterra is working with Tukwila School District teachers to develop lesson plans for students of all ages to use on field trips to the Hill, along with pre-visit and post-visit classroom activities.
Teachers throughout the Puget Sound region are welcome to bring school groups to the Hill for exploration of this unique property and hands-on experience with restoring native plants. Curriculum links include environmental science, social studies, the arts, and many other topics.
If you would like to learn more about getting a school or youth group involved please contact us at volunteer@forterra.org.
Supporters
Duwamish Hill Preserve Contributors
Acquisition and restoration of the Hill has been supported by many generous contributors.
The 10.5 acre property was acquired in 2004 with support from:
• 4Culture (King County Lodging Tax)
• City of Tukwila
• Foster High School Drama Club – Proceeds from Duwamish Hill Play
• Individual donors
• Interagency Committee for Outdoor Research, Land Conservation Fund (now the Washington State Recreation & Conservation Office)
• King Conservation District
• King County Conservation Futures Fund
• King County Landmarks & Heritage Commission
• Muckleshoot Community Charity Fund
• SAFECO
• Seattle Police Athletic Association
• The Boeing Company
• Washington State Legislature – Capital Budget Fund
In addition to a tremendous amount of in-kind work by the Friends of the Hill, Forterra, Tukwila Parks & Recreation Department, and many other volunteers, Phase I restoration and development has been supported by:
• 4 Culture (King County Lodging Tax)
• Alaska Copper
• City of Tukwila
• Ex Officio
• King County Department of Natural Resources Waterworks Program
• National Trust for Historic Preservation
• REI
• Sound Transit
• Washington State Heritage Capital Projects Fund
If you would like to make a contribution to this project, contact us.
Restore the Duwamish Shoreline Challenge
Inspired by the efforts of the BECU employees who independently began restoration work on over 10,000 square feet of shoreline along the Duwamish River, and through a partnership with Forterra and the City of Tukwila, BECU is issuing a friendly challenge to other businesses along the river to join in restoring the shoreline habitat. Local businesses can participate by donating money, volunteer labor, or both.
Much of the banks of the Duwamish River are overgrown with invasive plants such as Himalayan blackberry that have choked out native vegetation. These invasive species are destroying vital habitat for salmon and other native wildlife, and make it more difficult for Tukwila’s workers and residents to enjoy the river.
Through the Restore the Duwamish Shoreline Challenge, we aim to unite Tukwila’s business community for this local environmental cause. As an announcement and celebration of our common goal and cooperation, the Challenge kicked off with a Sept. 14th event for participants. Looking forward, there will be regularly scheduled events that will ultimately restore 150,000 square feet of riverbank along almost 1.5 miles of the Duwamish River.
BECU has committed $10,000 to the Challenge and is providing staff time to assist other businesses with hands-on restoration projects. We hope you will accept the Challenge!
(Click map to download a PDF version)
How You Can Get Involved:
- Sponsor a section of the river. Funding is needed to purchase restoration materials, recruit and support volunteers, and maintain newly planted shoreline areas. Challenge sponsors will also receive recognition at our launch event and will be featured in publicity materials.
- Organize a team of volunteers to help with restoration projects. Volunteer leaders can receive special training and help their workplace get involved.
- Grant access. Much of the shoreline we hope to restore is on private property. Granting permission for Challenge participants to work on your property is a simple, but crucial step for our success.
- Help get the word out. Help others learn about the Challenge by putting up fliers, and by informing clients, customers, and colleagues.
- Join a volunteer event. CLICK HERE to check our Events Calendar to find the next volunteer restortation event at the Duwamish.
Click here to learn about our Sponsorship Levels.
Click here for Frequently Asked Questions about the Challenge.
To join the challenge, please contact:
Hayes Swinney, Forterra Stewardship Director
(206) 509-6909
hswinney@forterra.org
What’s in the Works:
- Reaching out to participating businesses and securing sponsorships for the project.
- Recruiting and training volunteer leaders to engage more of the community.
- Purchasing tools, native plants, erosion control material, and other supplies needed for restoration efforts.
- Organizing volunteer work parties to remove invasive plants from the shoreline and plant native trees, shrubs, and groundcovers.
- Contracting professional restoration crews to work on sites too steep or otherwise difficult for volunteers.
Partners
Morse Wildlife Preserve
The Morse Wildlife Preserve was established in 1995 by a donation of land from Lloyd and Maxine Morse. Situated near the headwaters of the north fork of Muck Creek, the 98-acre preserve is a mosaic of conifer forest, wetlands, oak savanna, and prairie. Forterra and Tahoma Audubon Society (TAS) jointly manage the Preserve for wildlife and education.
A tremendous volunteer effort is underway to care for this beautiful property. The Morse Force—a group of volunteers who help manage the Preserve—holds monthly work parties to restore the wetland, prairie and upland habitats.
The Preserve is Forterra’s premier site in Pierce County for outdoor education. We host a number of schools and community groups each month for activities ranging from bird watching to trail construction.
To visit the Morse Wildlife Preserve, check Tahoma Audubon's calendar for upcoming educational programs or our Events page for work party information.
In 2008, Lloyd Morse donated an additional 48 acres for wildlife and education. The Maxine G. Morse Nature Conservancy property, located a few miles from the Morse Wildlife Preserve, is a forested preserve with pocket wetlands and a two mile trail system.
Wildlife Program
It is our primary objective to manage the land to protect and conserve endemic wildlife species. For over fifteen years, Forterra and others have been restoring the property to its original state with the prairie and oak savanna that were once common in this area. Many species of mammals, birds and insects adapted to this type of terrain saw dramatic population decline as their native habitat was replaced by agricultural and urban development. Thousand of hours of volunteer work have been applied to seed gathering, tilling, planting, watering and shielding seedling oaks and indigenous prairie plants.
With several different types of habitats on the property, it is an ideal home for many bird species, from owls and other raptors to aquatic fowl and (as of 2007) the uncommon western bluebird. Erecting bird boxes and fostering vegetation to provide food and cover encourages the growth of bird populations on the property.
The wetland, covering about half of the Preserve, includes a large pond and several open channels. Both migrating and resident birds use the wetland, which changes configuration regularly because of beaver dam building. Other mammals, such as deer, coyote, bobcat, rabbits, and a variety of rodents live here or make foraging visits. Cougar, bear, and elk are more infrequent visitors, but are present in the area.
Additionally, the Preserve's excellent avian habitat makes it a prime monitoring site for the Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship (MAPS) Program.
Education Program
As enhancements such as an observation tower, trails and an informational kiosk have been developed on the Preserve, and links with school personnel and programs have grown, the use of the Preserve as a unique site for outdoor education has blossomed.
Most of the education at the Preserve takes place in groups, with people young and old joining in! During the warmer months there are birding and plant identification outings on the property, and twice a month the general public is invited to walk the several trails, in guided groups and individually.
Student groups learn from a prepared curriculum that includes a comprehensive short-term course that imparts age-appropriate information about history, ecology, and species identification. It is keyed to markers placed throughout the trail system, which passes through five distinct habitat zones.
Click here to view a video about environmental education at the Morse Wildlife Preserve.
Rocky Ridge Elementary School Program
We have partnered with Rocky Ridge Elementary School for several years. It is one of our most innovative and successful youth programs. Students have joined us in restoring the preserve’s prairie to oak savanna, similar to its appearance prior to its conversion to cattle pasture more than 100 years ago. After extensive mowing and thatching, over 100 Garry oaks (from acorns and seedlings) were planted and meticulously cared for by volunteers. The Rocky Ridge students have contributed to our prairie restoration by conducting experimental treatments that use the scientific method to help us determine which method of removing the non-native pasture grass is most effective. Students also test the water quality of Muck Creek and learn skills in birding and nature observation.
Land Stewardship
Forterra manages its lands and waters with restoration and community engagement.
Our Lands
The Snohomish Basin Mitigation Bank.
Forterra has an ownership interest in over 14,300 acres of diverse landscapes within King, Kittitas, Pierce, Snohomish and Mason Counties, as well as estuary land on the Washington coast. Of this total, we own 7,498 acres and hold either a conservation easement or a stewardship easement on the remaining 6,824 acres. Forterra stewards the lands we own to enhance their ecological value and make them an asset to the local community. We monitor our conservation easements annually and work with landowners to maximize conservation values while maintaining the uses permitted on the property.
Forterra volunteer Land Stewards play a central role in the stewardship and monitoring of Forterra’s conserved lands. Trained by Forterra stewardship staff, volunteer stewards monitor properties, document threats, and assist with on-the-ground restoration.
The Snohomish Basin Mitigation Bank.
They are Forterra’s eyes and ears in the field and ambassadors to neighboring communities. To learn more about Forterra’s volunteer Land Steward program click here.
Volunteers can also lend a hand in monthly restoration events held on Forterra’s conserved lands. To learn more about these opportunities click here.
Forterra also stewards other conserved land owned by Government Agencies, Tribes, Non-Profits, and community members to provide professional stewardship services and improve land management throughout our region. On the Cedar River in King County, Forterra has been managing habitat restoration lands owned by Seattle Public Utilities since 2003, and has been providing stewardship services throughout the lower Cedar River basin on private property and other public lands since 2009. To learn more about these services and opportunities click here.
Forterra also participates in the Green Cities Network which creates public-private partnerships with municipalities to develop community-based stewardship programs for forested parklands and natural open spaces.
Protected Lands
Over 173,000 acres conserved!
In the past two decades, Forterra has conserved over 173,000 acres of land.
Transfer of Development Rights
What is TDR?
Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) is a market-based mechanism that promotes growth, while conserving working forest and prime agricultural areas.
Through individual, voluntary transactions, development rights are transferred from our region’s privately owned farmland, forestland and natural areas (sending sites) to areas that can accommodate additional growth (receiving sites). Landowners in sending areas have the option of selling the development potential from their property (but retaining ownership of the land), while developers in receiving areas pay for the right to a bonus in the receiving area, such as additional height or density than would otherwise be allowed. When development rights are removed from a parcel, a conservation easement is placed on the sending site.
Why Consider TDR?
Private funding. TDR uses the market to generate private funding for land conservation, helping to augment and leverage available public funds and programs.
Permanence. While zoning regulations can change over time, TDR protects property permanently and allows resource uses to continue.
Cost effectiveness. By focusing development in areas that already have infrastructure capacity, TDR can reduce a region’s infrastructure costs and more efficiently accommodate growth.
Forterra TDR Activities
Forterra is actively involved in the design and implementation of TDR programs at the regional, county, and city level. We have worked with King, Kittitas, Pierce and Snohomish counties and the Cities of Seattle, Snohomish, Sammamish and Tacoma to develop catered-TDR programs that work for each specific area.
For more information contact:
Skip Swenson, Senior Managing Policy Director
206-905-6935
sswenson@forterra.org
Ecosystem Services Markets
The Cascade and Olympic Agendas focus on a future for this region that is both environmentally sound and economically strong. To get there, we need new growth with limited impacts to our natural areas. This means we need to develop in ways where we avoid impacts. But, when impacts are unavoidable, we must smartly mitigate our impacts. Mitigation should serve the business needs of our communities while enhancing the resources of our natural areas.
The Snohomish Basin Mitigation Bank.
Through the environmental review process, a series of actions are identified for a developer to take to avoid and minimize damage to sensitive natural areas. If impacts are unavoidable, developers must mitigate through restoration or enhancement of other areas. These actions are required by a number of environmental laws and must occur before the developer may begin construction.
Studies show that wetland mitigation projects have experienced limited levels of success. This means that our region’s development activity is resulting in direct losses to the quality of our environment, despite regulatory requirements.
There are ways to improve our success. Success in protecting our natural areas while bolstering local businesses. Forterra is partnering with other organizations to explore new approaches and tools for improving the effectiveness of environmental mitigation and accessibility to these tools. We are encouraging a concept called watershed-based mitigation. This approach uses land and water science to improve how and where we focus development and conservation efforts. This approach is consistent with the Washington State Department of Ecology’s Watershed Characterization efforts.
In the recent past, wetland mitigation was typically done on the development site itself. Studies show that this approach, typically called “on-site and in-kind,” had some limitations. On-site mitigation projects were typically surrounded by development and suffered from pollution, high-impact activities, and lack of proper soil and water conditions.
The Snohomish Basin Mitigation Bank.
Watershed-based mitigation may help make mitigation more successful. With watershed-based mitigation, science about the surrounding landscape is used to decide where the unavoidable impacts can best be offset. This may be on the site, off the site, or a mixture of both. Developers who need to offset their impacts can connect with experienced restoration specialists via an offset market. These specialists can then undertake the required restoration, thus providing flexibility and improved environmental systems.
New Tools: Mitigation Banking and In-Lieu Fee Programs
Projects that take the watershed-based approach can be completed on a project-by-project basis, so that a single restoration project is undertaken to offset a single development project. More exciting, however, are the market-based tools that pool smaller development impacts together and offset them with a larger restoration project. Mitigation banks and in-lieu-fee programs are examples of this strategy.
Mitigation Banking
The Snohomish Basin Mitigation Bank.
Mitigation banks enable developers whose projects result in unavoidable impacts to wetlands to buy "credits" from an approved wetland mitigation bank instead of performing their own mitigation. Through purchasing the credits, the regulatory responsibility is transferred from the developer to the bank. Mitigation banks are located within the same watershed and positioned where high quality, successful restoration can occur. This creates larger, more ecologically effective wetlands that provide lasting habitat and ecological functions for both people and for plant and animal species.
Forterra has been involved in mitigation banking for several years. It supports good conservation practices while providing flexibility to the business community in meeting their regulatory requirements.
In-Lieu Fee
In-Lieu Fee mitigation is an emerging program in Washington where a developer would pay an offset fee into a fund instead of completing their own mitigation project. The pooled fees would then be used by the program administrator to purchase and restore sites to offset the impacts from the project.
This program is different from traditional mitigation and mitigation banking in that the mitigation happens after the impacts have occurred. Similar to mitigation banking, the regulatory responsibility is passed along to the program administrator. In general, pre-impact mitigation is preferable, however large scale restoration projects can be very expensive, and many organizations lack the up-front funding for large-scale restoration. Because the process pools fees, it allows conservation organizations to restore more high-value natural areas and can be more efficient for developers resulting in a win-win situation for both developers and the environment.
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