Along the looping trails of the Stimpson Family Nature Reserve, hikers trace the path of old logging roads. Today, hikers are more likely to be greeted by the shriek of a blue jay or chirruping frog song than the ring of an axe striking a tree. The 386-acre park is nestled in the Lake Louise watershed, five miles east of Bellingham, Wash. It features a shifting terrain of beaver ponds, wetlands and old growth forest.
The Stimpson Family Nature Reserve, once the site of a logging camp, is one of the few undisturbed forest wetlands in Whatcom County, according to the county Parks Department. Over the years, developers and logging companies repeatedly tried to purchase the land from the Stimpson family. Without the help of the Whatcom Land Trust, a local conservation group, this wetland might have been logged, drained and developed.
Instead, the land trust worked with the family who owned the core property and a variety of other agencies to create a nature reserve.
A land trust is a nonprofit organization created to hold land for a variety of purposes. Each trust is defined by its individual goals.
The Whatcom Land Trust was created by local dairy farmers in 1984 over a meal at The Dutch Mothers Restaurant in Lynden, Wash. The dairymen, concerned with the shrinking amount of agricultural land in Whatcom County, formed the trust to preserve farmland.
Over the past 25 years, the Whatcom Land Trust’s mission has expanded from conserving only agricultural land. The trust’s mission now includes the protection of open space, wildlife habitat and natural ecosystems due to population growth and urban development within Whatcom County.
The population of Whatcom County has increased by almost 18 percent in the past eight years, according to the most recent U.S. census. That is an extra 29,700 people, which is equal to moving the entire population of Mount Vernon, Wash. into Whatcom County.
The Whatcom Land Trust has preserved almost 9,000 acres of land throughout Whatcom County.
Founding member of the land trust and lawyer Rand Jack said the greatest challenge the land trust faced was gaining people’s trust. When the Whatcom Land Trust started, there was no government money involved, so the land trust asked people to donate their land, Jack said.
"A land trust lives or dies on trust," Jack said.
Eric Carabba, the land trust’s conservation director, said conservation easements protect land from being developed. It is how the land rust protects many sites in Whatcom County, he added.
Steve Walker, property steward for the land trust, said he thinks of a piece of land as a bundle of sticks. Each stick represents a different feature of that land: forest, water, the soil, or minerals. Conservation easements are designed to protect some aspect of that property: certain sticks in the bundle.
"The land trust works with owners to decide which aspects of the property should be protected," Walker said. "Each conservation easement is as unique as the individual landscape."
Walker said that the donation of a conservation easement is in perpetuity, or forever. Once a piece of property is registered, the land trust agrees to protect it beyond the lifetime of the landowner. In order to meet that agreement, the land trust must be a sustainable organization, he added.
"The land trust still needs to be in Whatcom County 100 years from now," Walker said.
One way in which the land trust is able to manage so much property is by turning it over to other agencies to manage, while retaining the conservation easements.
The land trust has worked closely with the Whatcom County Parks and Recreation department to help create nine county parks.
Mike McFarlane, the county director of Parks and Recreation, has been involved in several of these partnerships, including the Stimpson Family Nature Reserve. Often, the land trust negotiates an agreement between the landowners and the government. The county can do some things better than the land trust can, McFarlane said. While the land trust is good at acquiring land, the county is better equipped to handle issues like the maintenance of trails and parking lots and the recreational use of parks, he added.
McFarlane admits that the county and the land trust do not always see eye to eye. Disagreements over how much development or the kind of public access a piece of land should receive have come up.
"In the end it is a partnership," McFarlane said. "We have to pool our resources to make projects happen."
Walker said the land trust does not manage lands for recreational purposes, which may surprise people. The trust wants to conserve and protect land. The less attention it receives, the easier that is to do, Walker added.
The role the land trust plays in acquiring a property is not always simple.
Susan Trimingham, one of the seven Stimpson siblings who jointly owned the core property, said the siblings had different ideas about what should be done with the 136-acre site.
Trimingham said that her maternal grandfather bought the land, a logging camp known as the "Maning Camp," in the 1920s or 30s. The site contains a number of old growth trees. Over the years, logging companies approached her mother and then the siblings about buying the land.
In 2000, Trimingham and her siblings worked with the land trust to negotiate turning the property into a nature reserve. She said that her siblings wanted to keep the site as undisturbed as possible, but also desired trails and public access.
The Stimpson property was adjacent to Department of Natural Resources land, set aside for conservation, and property owned by Western Washington University. Ron Taylor, an emeritus biology professor at Western, stressed the biodiversity of the wetlands that their land had, Trimingham added.
The family donated 116 acres of property, retaining 20 acres for themselves. Trimingham said the family felt donating the land was the best use for it.
"Several members of our family know the land trust has a strong history of land stewardship," Trimingham said. "When you are committed to preserving land, you find a way to do it."
Carabba said that the land trust negotiated with the City of Bellingham, Western, the Trillium Corporation, Whatcom County Parks and the Washington Department of Natural Resources to create the park. Each entity donated land to the Stimpson family's 116 acres to bring the total to 386 acres. It takes problem solving, creativity and patience to complete deals like this, Carabba added.
"We’re good at negotiating complex partnerships," Jack said. "That is a hard thing for government agencies to do on their own."
Rich Bowers, the president of Whatcom Land Trust, said the current economic crisis has created a unique situation for the land trust. Less money is available for acquiring land. On the other hand, more people are selling land that they would not have parted with a few years ago because they need money.
While there is a limited window for acquiring land in Whatcom County, in these tough economic times, builders are not developing land as quickly. The trust needs to aggressively acquire as much land as it can, Bowers said.
The residents of Whatcom County take for granted that more and more people want to live here, Jack said. At the same time, no one believes that their quality of life will change, so there is a disconnect.
According to the Whatcom Coalition for Healthy Communities, in 2005 there were more houses built on unincorporated portions of the county than were built in the city of Bellingham. In 2007, the USDA’s agricultural census showed that the amount of land being farmed in Whatcom County declined by 31 percent over the previous five years.
"With that kind of population pressure, if you don’t protect the land and its ecosystems, we will end up looking like Seattle, Denver or Cleveland," Jack said.
Jack said that land is a finite commodity. Residents of Whatcom County need to protect what they have right now.
"In my 25 years with the land trust, I have come to see there is never going to be more land, only less," Jack said.
Jory M. Mickelson studies creative writing. His work has appeared in The Western Front, Jeopardy Magazine, The Cascadia Weekly and The Betty Pages.
.gif)
