Okanogan Land Trust

Working for wildlife/big conservation:okanogan land trust wrapped up its participation in a multi-year initiative involving several partner organizations called working for wildlife (wfw), which is funded by the national fish and wildlife foundation (nfwf) and ended in december 2022. Several conservation projects initiated and funded under this partnership are still being completed. Based on the success of w4w, olt continued to lead efforts among the partners to seek new funding to support the continuation of this work, first under a grant from the leiter family foundation called big conservation, and then through an application to the america the beautiful challenge grant from nfwf.

Conservation and stewardship:okanogan land trust continued its work to conserve and steward land and water resources. We made substanial progress on seven conservation easement projects; four are funded in part by the washington state recreation and conservation office and one in part by the national resources conservation service. One of these projects was competed in april 2024. We also worked with the methow beaver project on two projects funded by the washington state department of ecology to accomplish conservation easements and ecological restoration on two properties with significant riparian habitat; one of these was completed in may 2024. In total, these six projects represent over 4,000 acres of agricultural land, wildlife habitat and priority streams. Several new conservation easement projects were also initiated during fy 2023-24. Each of the olt's conservation easements was monitored by staff and board members, and staff began development of a new stewardship database to ensure monitoring and follow up are carried out in a timely and consistent manner.