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Friday, 11:15am

Keeping the “wide open spaces” is a challenge and opportunity for rural communities and conservationists as development and subdivision moves rapidly across the western landscape.  In most cases, the economics for landowners, businesses and/or communities play a significant role in defining whether lands will stay open or succumb to fragmentation or development.  This session will both present specific case studies where communities and organizations are working to maintain large landscapes and landscape connectivity – for species, for working forests and ranches, for aesthetics – as well as drill down to discuss the use of a number of specific tools that seek to manage the economics of these issues.  Participants will gain an understanding of where common ground can be established around the dual goals of ecological restoration and rural community stability.  They will also discuss specific tools, including conservation easements, land use planning, and emerging ideas for community ownership or management of former private industrial forestlands.

Speakers

• Margo Curgus, Director, Training and Community Leadership, Sonoran Institute
  Land use planning in the rural West
  
• Brad Nye, Conservation Director, Deschutes Land Trust with Gayle Baker and Bob Baker, Rimrock Ranch
  Protecting working lands with conservation easements
  
• Melanie Parker, Executive Director, Northwest Connections
  Maintaining community and ecosystem connectivity in the Swan Valley
  
  

Moderator

James Honey, Program Director, Sustainable Northwest

Recommended Readings

View the Wikipedia entry on conservation easements.

The following plan is a joint project of the Crooked River Watershed Council (CRWC), Upper Deschutes Watershed Council (UDWC), Deschutes Basin Land Trust (DBLT), and the Deschutes River Conservancy (DRC):  Habitat Restoration Plan for Whychus Creek, Lake Creek and Crooked River: A Cooperative Initiative to Support the Reintroduction of Salmon and Steelhead to the Upper Deschutes Basin.

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Margo Curgus

Marjo Curgus became the Sonoran Institute's Director of Training and Community Leadership in 2008 after working there since 2005 as a planner and project manager. Prior to joining the Institute, Marjo worked primarily in her home state of New Mexico in nonprofit management and as a planning consultant and facilitator. Her projects included: community visioning, economic development, water and watershed planning, affordable housing, neighborhood planning, public safety and youth development. Marjo has a master's in community and regional planning with an emphasis in natural resources planning and a bachelor's in political science and studio art from the University of New Mexico.

Brad Nye

Brad Nye is the Deschutes Land Trust’s Conservation Director.  He is responsible for identifying and carrying out the Land Trust’s conservation projects, including conservation easements and fee acquisitions.  Prior to joining the Land Trust, Brad worked for five years as a habitat conservationist for the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon. Brad earned a B.A. in English from the University of Oregon and his J.D. from the University of Washington.

Gayle Baker and Bob Baker

Central Oregon landowners who have worked closely with the Deschutes Basin Land Trust and sold a conservation easement on their Rimrock Ranch to protect this large working landscape.

Melanie Parker

Melanie Parker is co-founder and Executive Director of Northwest Connections.  Melanie graduated with honors from the University of California at Santa Cruz in 1988 with a bachelor's degree in Environmental Science.  She attained a Masters of Science degree in Environmental Studies from the University of Montana in 1997.  Melanie has taught field-based ecology courses for twenty years, and has worked in a wide diversity of outdoor jobs including backcountry ranger, wilderness guide and field ecologist. Melanie is an active spokesperson for place-based collaborative conservation.  She has a strong reputation as someone who can bring people with diverse interests together and craft a solution that benefits both people and land.  Melanie facilitates the Swan Valley Coordinating Committee, a group that includes state and federal agencies, local government, as well as local and regional non-profits to coordinate conservation and restoration work.  She is also the current chair of the Swan Valley Elementary School Board of Trustees. Melanie grew up in Arizona and has always been an avid outdoors person.  She and her husband Tom Parker now have two small children, Kyra and John, whom she hopes to instill with a similar love for nature.

James Honey

James Honey is the Director of the Rangelands and Ranching and Klamath Programs at Sustainable Northwest.  He has managed Sustainable Northwest’s efforts in the Klamath Basin since 2001.  He is responsible for one of the first “working lands” conservation easements in Oregon, a potential model for broader settlement of water and restoration and economic issues in the Upper Klamath Basin.  He is a recipient of the John Wesley Powell Award for outstanding contributions to Western watershed management for this and other innovative work with ranchers and the Klamath Tribes in the Basin.  James also directs SNW’s emerging Ranchland Renewal program, through which he has assisted with the regional expansion of Country Natural Beef, the largest cooperative of Food Alliance certified natural beef producers in the West.   James was born and raised in Mexico and is a graduate of Stanford University.  His background includes complex class action litigation, and conservation work with the World Wildlife Fund Mexico and the California Hydropower Reform Coalition.