Area: 144 acres
Location: Clackamas County, Oregon
Date Acquired: 2024
Acquisition Type: CNLM holds a conservation easement to protect imperiled species and habitats that exist on the preserve in perpetuity. The preserve is owned by third party.
Key Habitats: River and Riparian Habitat, Late-Successional Mixed Conifer Forest, Conifer Forest
Species of Special Interest to CNLM: Chinook salmon (Upper Willamette River ESU, Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) and winter steelhead (Upper Willamette River DPS, Oncorhynchus mykiss)
Introduction
The Center for Natural Lands Management applied to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s (ODFW) Willamette Wildlife Mitigation Program in 2021 for funds to purchase a conservation easement over the Molalla River and Forest Preserve. The funding was provided by the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) to permanently protect important fish and wildlife habitat in the Willamette Basin in exchange for the ODFW supporting BPA’s partial fulfillment of Pacific Northwest Electric Power Planning and Conservation Act (Northwest Power Act) and Endangered Species Act (ESA). The acquisition was supported by the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde and Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon (Tribes).
CNLM holds a conservation easement (CE) as well as an endowment that supports CNLM’s CE monitoring, enforcement, and defense role. The Preserve is privately owned.
Conservation Significance
The Preserve borders nearly a mile of the Molalla River — the largest un-impounded tributary to the Willamette River and one of the only free-flowing river systems that originate in the Cascades above Willamette Falls. The Preserve connects to a riparian habitat corridor and other lands of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which stretches 11 more miles upstream along the Upper Molalla River to the BLM Table Rock Wilderness Area. The section of the Molalla River that runs through the Preserve provides critical cold water refugia for salmonids in the summer due to the steep canyon walls and mature riparian forest. It is designated critical habitat for ESA-listed Upper Willamette River spring Chinook salmon and winter steelhead. An area of old-growth trees on the Property—including Douglas-fir, western redcedar, and a mature stand of Pacific yew—represents a regionally significant example of late-successional forest in the low elevation (<1,000’) Cascade foothills of the Willamette Valley.
Fish species known to use the Molalla River include federal- and state-listed steelhead and Chinook salmon, as well as Coho salmon, cutthroat trout, brook lamprey, Pacific lamprey, sculpin, and speckled dace. Salmon, steelhead, trout, lamprey, as well as plants on the property (salal, salmon berries, huckleberries, blackberries) are culturally significant to regional Tribes.
Management
The primary management objective for the Preserve is to protect the habitat and conservation values and allow for the natural succession of the forest. This strategy will involve invasive weed control, limited public access, and conservation easement monitoring.
Public Access
For more information and inquiries please Contact the preserve manager.
Contact
For information on Molalla River and Forest Preserve or Center for Natural Lands Management, please contact Sanders Freed, Pacific Northwest Preserve/Restoration Manager at sfreed@cnlm.org or 760.731.7790 extension 304.