Leveraging the Cape Meares Community Forest

Community Forests provide all types of benefits to local communities. For the seaside town of Cape Meares, in Tillamook County, Oregon, their community forest will play a key role in ensuring long-term ecosystem connectivity along the Oregon Coast. This 106-acre community forest is nestled between a 107-acre private timberland, (which was proposed to be harvested) and the 138-acre Cape Meares Wildlife Refuge.

In October of 2021, Cape Meares residents noticed unusual amounts of sediment in a local stream, this led to a conversation with the landowner who was in the process of a timber harvest, which then led to negotiations with the landowner to purchase a 107-acre parcel of forestland adjacent to the Cape Meares Community Forest. To prepare to acquire the private property Cape Meares Community Association engaged numerous regional conservation partners and supporters, including signing an official Memorandum of Understanding with North Coast Land Conservancy. Over the next year the CMCA researched grants, raised funds, and contacted many conservation organizations including importantly, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, who manages the neighboring Cape Meares National Wildlife Refuge.

Photo: Cape Meares Community Forest

Credit: Ciel Downing, CMCA

In September 2022 a purchase agreement between the CMCA and the private landowner, with the Conservation Fund acting as a bridge buyer was signing with the expectation that the  USFWS would purchase the property within 2 years. Funding the purchase of the private property is being done through fundraising and the sale of the Cape Meares Community Forest to The Conservation Fund. The Cape Meares Community Forest will be an integral part of successfully ensuring habitat connectivity, provide nesting for the endangered Marbled Murrelet and public access to this unique tract of coastal forest and refuge for future generations while limiting further forest fragmentation through development.

The community is now in the final stages of their land acquisition and transfer effort, which you can read more about here  and has the goal of finalizing the acquisition May 30, 2024.

The Cape Meares Community was able to turn their community forest into a piece of a much larger conservation effort. Without the Cape Meares Community Forest, this project would have been much more difficult to achieve. This project is a great example of how a community forest can leverage a larger conservation effort, through creativity, engagement, and community-leadership.

Shown Above: Each of the Connecting Properties for this Conservation Effort.

For more information about the project email capemearesca@gmail.com.