FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CLC to host public meetings on Carbon River Valley

Land stewardship meeting will help shape the future of lands in the valley that leads to Mt. Rainier

The meetings will help shape the future of the Valley and lands owned by Pierce County Parks and Recreation.

The Cascade Land Conservancy will host the first of three public meetings December 17th to gain community viewpoints that will help shape the future of key parklands in the Carbon River Valley.

Pierce County Parks and Recreation currently owns in excess of 2,000 acres in the valley and has contracted with the Cascade Land Conservancy (CLC) to develop a land classification system to guide the long-range management and stewardship of these properties and other parklands owned by the County.  From this land classification system, Pierce County will be making important decisions about how to best manage these public lands, including public use and conservation of natural and cultural resources.

The need to develop a stewardship program is driven by the dramatic population rise in western Washington, and the growing importance of comprehensive, watershed-level integrated land management strategies.

Land managers such as Pierce County Parks must make efforts to ensure a healthy, sustainable resource for ecosystem resiliency as well as for the use and enjoyment of the public. Development pressures, conflicts between user groups, concerns of adjacent landowners, as well as numerous environmental changes demand a deliberate, strategic approach to land management.

As part of its work with Piece County Parks, the Cascade Land Conservancy will collaborate with other Carbon River Valley (CRV) landowners and stakeholders to achieve a common approach to developing a classification system and set realistic expectations for stewardship.

Over the next year, CLC will:

• Host three meetings of stakeholders and landowners in the CRV to get feedback on expectations and desires for the classification system as well as to provide input to the plan once it is developed. Also, meetings will be used to explore possible collaborative stewardship opportunities between landowners.
• Distribute a brief report based on the above meetings to interested stakeholders.
  

As a leading stewardship organization in the Puget Sound region, Cascade Land Conservancy recognizes that development of a systematic approach to the classification and management of complex properties having multiple values represents one of the greatest challenges in the field of land conservation.

However, CLC and its partners -- natural resources, cultural heritage, scientific and recreational experts -- bring a wealth of knowledge and a collaborative spirit to this task.

“We look forward to the opportunity to develop a comprehensive methodology for classification and management of Pierce County Park properties in the Carbon River Valley that will be useful as a model for other watershed-level and regional planning efforts,” said John Floberg, Stewardship Vice President at the Cascade Land Conservancy.

Cascade Land Conservancy will collaborate on the project with a team of expert consultants to address individual aspects of the classification and inventory. They will be working with International Forestry Consultants, Inc. regarding the classification and inventory of forest resources.  For cultural classifications work, they have retained Past Forward Northwest Cultural Services and for a cultural inventory, Northwest Archaeological Associates. Finally, Jones & Jones Architects and Landscape Architects, Ltd will be working on the recreational classification and assessment.

The first public meeting on managing Pierce County Parks and Recreation Lands in the Carbon River Valley will be:

December 17, 2007
7-9 pm
Wilkeson Town Hall
540 Church Street
Wilkeson, WA 98396

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