Sanctuary Forest Says Van Arken Community Forest Becoming a Reality

Sanctuary Forest’s plans to protect 75% of the Van Arken watershed and create a community forest in Whitethorn are nearly complete. Galen Doherty, Director of Sanctuary Forest’s Lands Program, explained that the organization entered a partnership with Lost Coast Forestlands, an impact investment group, to make this possible. Escrow closed October 10th. The land is now owned by Lost Coast Forestlands and Sanctuary Forest has negotiated a draft Conservation Easement on the Van Arken property now owned by Lost Coast Forestlands. Doherty says Sanctuary Forest should be able to fully execute their contract for that Conservation Easement within the next 18 to 24 months.

The Van Arken watershed has been owned by Boyle Forests LP , locally known as the Barnum property, which had a total holding of about 11,000 acres. Doherty said that when the Boyle land was initially put up for sale, Sanctuary Forest held community meetings and found there was a high degree of interest for protecting that logging land from continued industrial style logging and from development into 40 acre residential parcels.

The lands were priced at approximately $5,500 an acre, which adds up quickly. Every thousand acres becomes $5.5 million, but the community was motivated and created the “Fund an Acre” program. People from around the country also pitched in and Sanctuary Forest secured $650,000 through that fundraiser. With that very tangible evidence of community support, Sanctuary Forest was able to successfully acquire resource agency funding including $1.5 million from the Wildlife Conservation Board, $1.85 million from CDFW and $50,000 from foundation grants for a total of $3.9 million.

And while that is a monumental success, “It became clear,” said Doherty, “that we weren’t going to be able to buy the property outright.” At $5,500 an acre, the 1,600 acres of the Van Arken watershed would cost around $8.8 million dollars. Even though Sanctuary Forest was nearly halfway to that amount, they also had several other failed grant applications. Doherty said,

We were really feeling up against the wall. We saw several other sales of lands Boyle Forests owned nearby, and we felt like if we didn’t perform, or bring a partner to the table who could perform, that we were at risk of losing the chance to conserve this property for the foreseeable future.

Green Diamond Resource Company had already purchased 9,400 acres of Boyle land in the Sprowl Creek watershed with an associated THP (Timber Harvest Plan) named Van Aken. The Van Aken THP extends over the Gibson Ridge and includes around 300 acres in the confusingly closely named Van Arken Creek headwaters. Those 300 acres were therefor unavailable to Sanctuary Forest and LCF. 

So Sanctuary Forest partnered with Lost Coast Forestlands (LCF). Doherty says, the non-profit has successfully worked with LCF “for several years now on the Lost Coast Redwood and Salmon Initiative where we’ve protected 2,500 acres in Lost River a tributary to the Mattole and in Indian Creek a tributary of South Fork Eel.”

LCF is an “impact investment group.” Doherty explained that impact investing is a private investment group that

… invests capital at scale, over a very long period of time to get a rate of return that meets their investors’ needs but is also realistic to the local economic and ecological conditions where their investment is. So for example, purchasing Van Arken now is not a great investment if you want a rate of return that’s high and immediate because the only thing you’d be able to do is clearcut log to liquidate any monetary value on the property and then turn around and sell it. [LCF’s] interest is the much longer 100 to 150 year horizon where you are looking at doing a lot of active, expensive management up front which will set the forest on the trajectory that has healthier forests, higher growth rates, more marketable trees as well as carbon projects. All of these things take time.”

Sanctuary Forest has negotiated a draft Conservation Easement. Doherty described the details of the Conservation Easement as,

We have agreed to a draft conservation easement, and a five year option period during which we can buy the conservation easement from them. The conservation easement will uphold all of the project’s specific goals as well as the vision we originally set out when we did all this community outreach and fundraising. [Including] things like dissolving the subdivision and development rights, preventing clearcutting, as well as [voiding] the original Timber Harvest Plan (THP) which was approved and included 150 acres of clearcutting.…

In addition, we have been able to secure several affirmative rights which are very unique, and not commonly used in Conservation Easements. These include the ability to do up to 100 acres of stream flow enhancement and groundwater recharge projects along the riparian corridors of the property, so those are areas where we will have a more or less managing interest in, and work in cooperation with LCF to develop different projects which will in the long run enhance stream flows in Van Arken Creek which will boost flows for the Mattole headwaters as well as the entire watershed and downstream communities.

In addition we have set aside about 300 acres of late seral reserves which will be managed to a different standard, retaining more old trees over time, as well as a meadow conservation area which will be ideal for low impact public recreation…”

For Sanctuary Forest, this is almost better than owning the property outright. Doherty said,

I feel like we are protecting the most important values of the property without inheriting the entire responsibility of managing the property as a small land trust. So, in some ways, it’s a perfect partnership between a private interest and a public interest where we can take on a management role stewarding the ecosystem services the property provides in cooperation with a landowner who takes on the role of maintaining the road network and improving the forest so that it still commercially viable and provides a long term source of revenue for the local community.

The easement will cost $4.135 million, and Doherty says Sanctuary Forest has 95% of that money secured and feels confident they will have the remaining balance within a year or so.

Once Sanctuary Forest owns the conservation easement, Doherty said they will then begin to execute projects that it is already planning with great joy. Doherty says his excitement rests in the idea that,

It’s going to give our community the opportunity to get out and enjoy open space area in Whitethorn [which is mostly private land,] and it will give people a first hand look at what sustainable restoration forestry looks like in previously impacted timber lands as well as a look at how the various types of restoration projects are being implemented.

 

We have various pilot projects we are excited to implement in there as well as more tried-and-true large wood…projects. We see this as the very beginning of our relationship with the watershed where we can start to steward the land in such a way that we can start to improve the forest health and increase resiliency to fire and other effects of climate change.

The Sanctuary Forest Radio Hour airs Thursday, October 24th at 5:00 p.m on KMUD. Doherty will be on the show with Sanctuary Forest’s April Newlander to talk about the project and its goals, with Tim Metz who leads LCF to discuss the forestry component of what will become a working community forest.

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4 Comments
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KH
Guest
KH
4 years ago

Congratulations to you all; Sanctuary Forest Staff and Board, Community Members, Fundraisers and everyone who worked so hard to make this project a reality. So proud of our community and all involved!!

Such an important step in improving and preserving our beautiful area for generations to come!

yesmeagain
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yesmeagain
4 years ago

Dear Cheese: I’m just guessing, but I’ll bet you’re totally opposed to any kind of gun control. So why are you advertising the need for keeping guns out of the hands of angry goofballs by making comments like this?

Guest
Guest
Guest
4 years ago

Is it ok to be cautiously optimistic that there is a compromise possible between commerce and complete conservation?

asking for a friend
Guest
asking for a friend
4 years ago
Reply to  Guest

Yes. And I’m hoping they let the moto x riders keep using it too. Whitethorn would lose mor then it gains if the kids get kicked out of their spot to ride