3,500-acre Rainforest Reserve exemplifies the fruits of supporting your local land trust
In 2021, North Coast Land Conservancy protected the 3,500-acre Rainforest Reserve property, its “most ambitious conservation project to date and one of the largest private conservation projects ever on the Oregon coast,” said NCLC executive director Katie Voelke.
“It’s wild, it’s huge, it’s tall,” Voelke told The Daily Astorian. “You’re in the clouds. You’re above the rain. All this incredible coastal wildness and it’s just right there.”
On the organization's website, NCLC describes the reserve like this:
The Rainforest Reserve is North Coast Land Conservancy’s largest habitat reserve and one of the largest privately conserved properties in Oregon. It is the mountainous horizon line you see looking southbound from Cannon Beach or north from Rockaway Beach and Nehalem Bay. Together with an adjacent state park and marine reserve, it helps forms a continuous 32-square-mile conservation corridor stretching from the summits of coastal-fronting mountains to the nearshore ocean. It is home to rare plants and animals and forests of spruce and hemlock growing toward maturity.
Together with an adjacent state park and marine reserve, the Rainforest Reserve forms a sea-to-summit conservation corridor that stretches 32 square miles from the crests of the Coast Range to the Pacific Ocean. Yet the project might not have come to fruition if not for a unique program known as Advancing Conservation Excellence (ACE), a 10-year effort of the Land Trust Alliance and the Yarg Foundation to accelerate the pace and scale of conservation in Oregon by investing in the state’s community of land trusts.
“One of the largest impacts the ACE program has had at NCLC was granting us money to use on an option payment for the Rainforest Reserve property,” said Voelke.
As one of the most recent and largest accomplishments for a land trust in the state, the Rainforest Reserve project is a fitting symbol of the ACE program’s success. But ACE has done far more than grant money to land trusts for conservation projects. According to Voelke, ACE funding helped NCLC professionalize its communications, expand expertise and increase technical capabilities. Voelke herself was part of the first cohort of leaders to go through the Alliance’s Wentworth Leadership Program, where she learned critical management skills about board governance and ethical, responsible land transaction processes.
During ACE, NCLC grew from five to 12 staffers and went from being responsible for 1,500 acres of protected land to 10,000 acres. In addition to foundational capacity-building support, NCLC received support for the $11.8 million outreach campaign to protect the Rainforest Reserve.
ACE has enabled Oregon land trusts to become sophisticated, empowered organizations within a thriving conservation community.
“The land trust community in Oregon is incredibly strong thanks to the ACE program,” wrote Katie Ryan, executive director of The Wetlands Conservancy, in a post-program survey. “The support of ACE really allowed the land trust community in Oregon to become a powerful conservation and community organizing force.”
This blog is excerpted from an article entitled "The Wind at our Backs: How investing in land trusts reaps conservation rewards" that appeared in the Spring 2023 issue of Saving Land, the nation’s leading award-winning magazine written by and for land conservationists to Alliance members and partners. Find the full article and issue here.