Big River and Salmon Creek Forests, CA

Through a partnership between The Conservation Fund, the State of California’s Water Resources Control Board, Coastal Conservancy and Wildlife Conservation Board, and with support from ACE Group and Dallas-based Centex, approximately 16,000 acres of redwood and Douglas fir forests surrounding Big River and Salmon Creek were permanently protected from fragmentation, development and conversion to non-forest uses.

The Hawthorne Timber Company and The Campbell Group are pleased to make this unique opportunity available to The Conservation Fund. We strongly support maintaining California’s working forestlands so that our environment is conserved and timber supply is sustained to fulfill the needs of the local forest products industry.

- Jerry Brodie, Managing Director, The Campbell Group

Summary

Owning and managing working forests in California is a new undertaking for the Fund, which in 2004 purchased the 24,000-acre Garcia River Forest from Coastal Forestlands Ltd. for $18 million in partnership with the Coastal Conservancy, the Wildlife Conservation Board and The Nature Conservancy. The Conservation Fund will implement sustainable forestry practices across the Big River and Salmon Creek forest properties that will restore water quality and protect habitat for coho salmon, steelhead trout and spotted owl.

Challenge

Although northern California’s coastal forests have long supported abundant wildlife and a thriving economy—nearly 40% of the value of all timber harvested in California comes from privately owned forests in Humboldt and Mendocino counties—many of California’s forest-based communities are at a crossroads. The large commercial timber companies have been divesting of all of their forestlands. Some of that land has been fragmented into small holdings for single-family homes or weekend getaways. Most acreage has been sold to timber investment or real estate investment companies, whose harvest practices are often geared toward short-term profit as opposed to the long-term sustainable management typically employed by commercial forest products companies. Because of the number of large properties on the market and the competition from the private sector, conservationists are struggling to finance forestland acquisitions to protect the most sensitive natural areas, such as those within Big River and Salmon Creek.

Solution

The Conservation Fund developed an innovative funding partnership, attracting a $25 million loan from California's State Revolving Fund (SRF), the largest loan of its kind in US history. SRF is a low-interest loan program established under the Clean Water Act to fund water quality projects. While the program has traditionally been tapped to pay for construction of publicly owned wastewater treatment facilities and related infrastructure, SRF loans can also be used to address non-point source pollution issues, including those related to silviculture. In addition to the $25 million loan, the Fund received grants of $7.25 million each from the Coastal Conservancy and Wildlife Conservation Board. Private support was provided by ACE Group and Centex through the ACE Land Legacy Fund and the Centex Land Legacy Fund – both of which are used to support The Conservation Fund’s top conservation priorities. To help support the cost of the acquisition and long-term forest restoration efforts, the Fund aims to raise an additional $7.5 million from private philanthropic sources.

Results

The acquisition of this 16,000 acres of forestlands by The Conservation Fund ensures that the redwood and Douglas fir forests surrounding Big River and Salmon Creek will be permanently protected from fragmentation, development and conversion to non-forest uses. Across both forests, the Fund will implement sustainable management practices that include decreasing the intensity of harvests, increasing the time between harvests and widening riparian buffers to improve water quality in streams impaired by erosion resulting from a century of timber harvesting.