January 2006
Cascades-to-Chuckanuts Conservation Plan
by Sarah Kuck
Sarah Kuck studies environmental journalism at WWU and is also the chief editor of the Huxley College publication The Planet.
Seven million people and urban sprawl surround the waters of Puget Sound, the Northern Straits and Georgia Basin, leaving little left of the natural habitat.
One of the last coastal areas from Olympia to Vancouver, B.C., that allows native forest habitat to stretch from the sea to the Cascades is the largely undeveloped Chuckanut Range corridor.
Three Bellingham residents—Randy Wolcott, Ken Wilcox and Seth Fleetwood—began an effort to establish and preserve this corridor.
“This area from the Chuckanuts to the Cascades is the last place in Washington, maybe even in the Pacific Northwest that we could do something like this,” Whatcom County Councilmember Seth Fleetwood said.
Ken Wilcox, a trail planning consultant and author of “Hiking Whatcom County” said the trio started the North Cascades Corridor Project in 1997. Wilcox said the area might be too large to buy it all up and turn it into a park, but the project will aim to purchase lands most ecologically valuable or lands most sensitive to development.
“Obviously it’s a huge undertaking, but the possibility of it is quite exciting,” Fleetwood said. “But if we don’t do this, we will lose an opportunity that is unique. We will lose a unique area in the Pacific Northwest, which is a constant corridor from the mountains to the sea.”
The members of the project asked the Whatcom and Skagit Land Trusts to come on as partners to help bring the idea to reality.
Gordon Scott, conservation director of the Whatcom Land Trust, said the Whatcom Land Trust joined forces with the Skagit Valley Land Trust because the boundary spills into Skagit County as well. This is the first time the two have partnered on a cross border issue.
“This is a bold and far-reaching concept,” Scott said. “If you look at the land from Olympia to Vancouver most of it is developed into agriculture, rural development to urban development until you get to the Chuckanuts. This is the only place where the arm of the Cascades reaches down to the saltwater.”
The North Cascades Corridor Project, The Whatcom Land Trust and the Skagit Land Trust applied for a feasibility study with funding from the Paul G. Allen Forest Protection Foundation.
Conservation Plan Created in 2004
Chris Beehe of the Conservation Biology Institute, Scott and Wilcox created the Cascades-to-Chuckanuts Conservation Plan in January of 2004.
The Cascades-to-Chuckanut region contains slightly more than 10,000 acres of old growth conifer forest. Only 14 percent, or 1,400 acres, are located within protected areas. Most of the Chuckanut Range is mature second-growth Douglas fir and western hemlock forest, with some trees as old as 200 years.
The rivers in this region are especially important for salmonid habitat, and the land for a variety of east to west migrating wildlife like elk, deer, bear and cougar. This area is also particularly unique because of its role as a pathway for animals traveling north and south seasonally such as migratory birds, according to the plan.
Scott said the Whatcom Land Trust will use the conservation plan to go to foundations, agencies and the public to look for opportunities for donations of land or money. The goal is to work cooperatively with landowners and agencies, but for now the plan is just to keep talking about it.
“Many people think that if you’re not using land to make money, you are wasting it,” Scott said. “It’s a huge hurdle.”
The benefits of recreation, water quality, wildlife habitat and solitude are all things not easily purchased, Scott said.
“As areas grow, more and more people will see the benefit of not turning the entire region into urban sprawl,” Scott said. “Will we decide to keep this land in forestry and open space or keep on the same destructive path of rural development and urban growth?”
The rate at which this project gets put together will depend on fund-raising, Wilcox said. The groups hope to have a brochure and Web site put together this winter. §
