Nature campaign aims to preserve.

Byline: SCOTT MABEN The Register-Guard

As part of an unprecedented drive to raise money for conservation projects across Oregon, The Nature Conservancy is spending more than $10 million to restore and preserve native habitat in west Eugene and the Coburg Hills.

They are two of 20 places of "critical ecological significance" that the nonprofit membership organization has singled out in its $70 million "The Heart of Oregon" campaign.

The conservancy already has collected $57 million in donations and pledges during the 2 1/2 -year-old initiative, which was kept under wraps until last week.

"In the end, our society will be defined not only by what we create but by what we refuse to destroy," said Russell Hoeflich, the state director of The Nature Conservancy. "That's what motivates this bold attempt to pass on to future generations a natural legacy that our descendants will really be proud of."

The money is being used to add lands to the conservancy's holdings and to team up with property owners to preserve land for wildlife or habitat research. It's also used to establish endowments for long-term land management.

Controlling non-native species, such as Scotch broom, in order to protect indigenous plants is one of the primary management objectives of these sites, said Catherine Macdonald, director of conservation programs for The Nature Conservancy of Oregon.

About $8.8 million is dedicated to conservation efforts in west Eugene, including the group's 440-acre Willow Creek Natural Area south of West 18th Avenue and west of Bertelsen and Bailey Hill roads.

The preserve is considered to be the best remaining example of native "wet prairie" habitat in the southern Willamette Valley. It is home to populations of Fender's blue butterfly and its host plant, Kincaid's lupine - both protected under the federal Endangered Species Act.

The conservancy has been working since 1990 to piece together and protect the Willow Creek preserve.

"We've been expanding and consolidating to make it more ecologically viable and to increase the area in which we can do habitat restoration of native wet prairie, native upland prairies, oak woodlands and the riparian areas along Willow Creek that are so important to these remnants of Willamette Valley habitats," conservancy spokesman Stephen Anderson said.

The campaign - the largest private conservation initiative in Oregon's history - also benefits the conservancy's work to save wetlands from development in west Eugene. About 2,500 acres of wetlands have been set aside in a partnership between the conservancy, the city of Eugene, Oregon Youth Conservation Corps and three federal agencies: the Bureau of Land Management, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Fish and Wildlife Service.

"It has taken an incredible amount of work to pull that system together, and we have a handful of parcels that were identified over the years as important that are still out there," Macdonald said.

In a newer phase of acquisition, the conservancy purchased 242 acres in the Coyote Creek basin on the southeast corner of Fern Ridge Lake last year and is working on buying two more parcels totaling about 400 acres.

In efforts on the other local site included in the fund-raising campaign, the conservancy is spending $1.7 million in the Coburg Hills to preserve upland prairie habitat, which once ringed the Willamette Valley.

The group manages conservation easements for the 62-acre Horse Rock Ridge area, which looks down on the Mohawk River valley, and the 30-acre Coburg Ridge site, at the southern end of the hills.

The easements, which will preserve the areas in perpetuity, were donated in 2001 by Willamette Industries and will continue to be honored by Weyerhaeuser, which bought Willamette in March.

The conservancy calls the Coburg Hills sites "rare remnants of upland prairie" with abundant native bunchgrasses, old oak trees and wildflowers. They also are a sanctuary for Fender's blue butterfly.

The Horse Rock Ridge site also connects with a 378-acre research natural area managed by the BLM. The diverse area supports more than 200 native plant and animal species.

The conservancy also is working with Jon Jaqua of Eugene on a possible conservation easement and management endowment for more than 1,200 acres in the Jaqua family ownership in the Coburg Hills.

Much of the Heart of Oregon campaign funds already have been spent on the west Eugene and Coburg Hills projects and 18 others in Oregon, which total more than 130,000 acres.

"As soon as we raise money, we try to get it invested in conservation," Macdonald said. "We've come a long way and have accomplished a great deal of fund-raising and work on the ground already.

"The last pieces are always the biggest push, and we recognize we have a big job ahead of us over the next year," Macdonald said.

Other campaign sites include Cascade Head north of Lincoln City, Fanno Meadows in the Coast Range west of Salem, Kingston Prairie above the North Santiam River and the Rogue River Plains in Southern Oregon.

East of the Cascades, sites include Sycan Marsh in the upper Klamath Basin, Juniper Hills east of Bend, the Middle Fork John Day River and nearly 27,000 acres of bunchgrass prairie known as Zumwalt Prairie Preserve near Hells Canyon in Northeastern Oregon.

"You have to make tough choices," Hoeflich said, describing the selection of the 20 sites. "These definitely are the most urgent in our portfolio of places we want to see protected."

More than 1,000 supporters have given to the campaign during its "quiet phase." Those include $5.2 million from WebTrends founders Glenn Boyd and Eli Shapira and more than $1 million each from Willamette Industries and the Paul G. Allen Foundation.

The Nature Conservancy has helped protect 14.5 million acres of valuable lands and waters in the United States. In Oregon, the conservancy owns or manages 47 nature preserves and has helped protect more than 340,000 acres for the state's rarest native plants and animals.

CAPTION(S):

A visitor views the Mohawk River valley from the Horse Rock Ridge area, which is managed by The Nature Conservancy.