Creating a Conservation Community in Oregon's Willamette Valley

Posted: 03-Jan-2006; Updated: 11-Sep-2006

Meeting with landowners on the land is essential for Steve Smith’s wildlife habitat conservation work. Here, the Partners for Fish and Wildlife private lands biologist (right) is meeting with Corvallis landowner Richard Owens. (Credit: U.S. Fish &Wildlife Service)

What brings together the complex web of concerned landowners, federal and state conservation programs, nonprofit groups, native plants and wildlife and the restoration biology needed to restore natural communities? Usually it's a key individual, and in the Willamette Valley of western Oregon that person is Steve Smith.

Smith is a Private Lands Biologist with the Willamette Valley National Wildlife Refuge Complex. His job is to work with private landowners in the Valley to promote native species and their habitats. Through U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program, he and his colleagues develop projects that restore the Valley's diverse wetland, oak savannah, and wet and dry prairie habitats. The Partners program provides cost-share funding for private landowners who volunteer to restore native plant and wildlife habitat on their land.

Landowner partnerships key

"In a landscape like the Willamette Valley, which is 96% privately owned and contains numerous species in decline, landowners are the key to preventing a downward trajectory in habitat and population sizes," says Smith. In just the first six months of 2005, he brought 28 new landowners into the Partners program. Smith is so well-known in the Valley that he needs to do little outreach, and news about land management successes spreads by word of mouth. "Landowners contact us for assistance in discovering what is valuable on their lands," he says. 

Smith begins building a partnership by walking the property with a landowner and determining what lives there. Many Valley residents are excited to discover the diversity of plants, butterflies and songbirds on the land, and as they begin managing their land to aid native species, some find that their agricultural business and quality of life benefit as well.

Over half the known sites for federally threatened Nelson’s checkermallow are in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. With help from private landowners, the species stands a good chance of recovery. (Credit: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

Next, Smith discusses assistance programs with the landowner. Depending on the landowner's interest level, various partner organizations can be consulted. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has a cooperative agreement with the USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service for funding and implementing conservation programs, such as the Wetlands Reserve Program.

Restored land generates new revenue

One landowner benefiting from this approach is Polk County grass seed farmer Mark Knaupp, who has worked with several agencies on his WRP project. Since 1996, he has restored a 430-acre wetland and established a wetland mitigation bank on his 2,000-acre farm. In addition to selling wetland mitigation credits, Knaupp hosts duck club activities on his land. Knaupp once derived his entire income solely from grass seed, but now says that WRP has been "a big plus . . . by diversifying our land base, we have three income sources."

Smith's third step in working with a landowner is to develop a Partners program voluntary cooperative agreement to restore or sustainably manage habitat. Projects are usually funded and conducted cooperatively, with federal, state and non-profit organizations participating with the landowner. This management can preclude or remove the need to list a species under the Endangered Species Act. Landowners also have the option of ensuring long-term protection of listed species and their habitats by establishing conservation easements through NRCS and Farm Bill programs.

Rare plant closer to recovery

Partners program participants Warren and Laurie Halsey own 270 acres in Benton County. "We've had wonderful assistance over a number of years, because we have different land types and Steve [Smith] knows the land," says Laurie. In 1996, the Halseys began restoring wetland ponds, which now harbor two animals on the Oregon sensitive species list, western pond turtles (Clemmys marmorata) and northern red-legged frogs (Rana aurora aurora). Their upland prairie habitat supports federally threatened Kincaid's lupine (Lupinus sulphureus ssp. kincaidii) and federally endangered Fender's blue butterflies (Icaricia icariodes fenderi). Nelson's checkermallow (Sidalcea nelsoniana), another federally threatened plant, occupies their wet prairie habitat. To enhance the plants' survival, the Halseys are gradually eliminating non-native species.

The Halseys also participate in research to determine optimal restoration strategies. On several ten-acre sites, native plants are being experimentally planted, non-native plants removed and varying management regimes conducted.

Western pond turtle (Credit: Terry Spivey/USDA Forest Service)

The checkermallow favors Willamette Valley's wet soils and is easy to propagate and reintroduce. Smith and other restoration participants, such as Linda Boyer of Heritage Seedlings, Inc., which propagates the seeds, are optimistic that the plant can make a relatively quick recovery. However, restoring entire prairie plant communities associated with the checkermallow is essential.

"Wet prairie ecosystems are more than a garden plot of checkermallow," says Smith. Restoration often requires planting an array of native species in fields where many years of commercial grass production have eradicated the soil's native seed bank. Reducing competing non-native plants takes time and continued intensive management.

Restoring natural communities of native species can also require a community of dedicated conservationists. With Smith's persistence in bringing together landowners, the Partners program, NRCS and Farm Bill conservation programs, Nelson's checkermallow could become the first listed species to achieve full recovery in the Willamette Valley.

Conservation Incentives thanks Ann Carlson, FWS Endangered Species Recovery Biologist, for this article. She works with a cross-program recovery group in the FWS Portland Regional Office.