Lawmakers Approve $1 million for Land Transfer to CSNM

U.S. lawmakers have passed a new Interior Department appropriations bill providing $1 million to fund the transfer of 955 acres we’re holding in trust for addition to the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument (CSNM) in southern Oregon.

Located within the monument’s original planning boundaries, the newly conserved parcels will help connect important wildlife corridors for the region’s numerous threatened and endangered species while extending public access throughout the Monument.

Passage of the bill was covered by the Associated Press, Mail Tribune and KTVZ-TV and other local outlets.

When the land conveys to public ownership in 2010 we’ll have transferred more than half of the 5,000 acres we’ve purchased from willing sellers in order to complete the original vision of the nation’s first monument designated for its regional biodiversity.

“The $1 million for the 52,940-acre monument will be used to complete the transfer of land from the Pacific Forest Trust to the federal government, said Jim Whittington, spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's Medford District.

Based in San Francisco, the nonprofit trust dedicated to preserving forestland has purchased nearly 5,000 acres, much of it former timber company land, that it is transferring to the agency at cost. Although some 60 percent of the land within the monument's boundaries is federally owned, there are islands of private parcels within its perimeter.”

The full article can be read here.

This land transfer delivers on the promise made by PFT’s Campaign to Complete the Vision of a more fully conserved Monument. To read more about PFT’s work in the CSNM, see our recent blog post and our press release.