A West Olympia game path moves through an understory of grasses and ferns beneath a canopy of native trees. Jeannette Barreca halts as a birdsong spirals through the air. “Swainson’s thrush,” she said, identifying the bird. “They come back every summer.”
A water quality expert retired from the Washington State Department of Ecology, Barreca knows migratory birds need wooded habitat; they will not return to deforested land. And she does not want to see that happen.
Barreca and her husband Bill Yake, an environmental engineer also retired from Department of Ecology, are stewards of a 63-acre wetland between Kaiser Road and Evergreen Parkway. Part of the Green Cove Watershed, the property is preserved by the Capitol Land Trust (CLT).
Driving by on either road, one would never know it exists.
Every year since 2002 Barreca and Yake walk the property’s perimeter, documenting and photographing the wetland. They look for encroachment, invasive species, and violations of the terms of the conservation easement held by CLT. They then report back to CLT, whose staff addresses issues with the property owner.
Olympia-based Capitol Land Trust has protected natural areas from development, encroachment, and such natural culprits as erosion since its incorporation in 1987.
Land trusts buy or are gifted with land, which they hold in perpetuity for conservation and public benefit. Property owners looking to ensure that their land will be preserved – no matter who buys or inherits it – can sell or donate a conservation easement to CLT.
Capitol Land Trust concentrates efforts on prairies and oak woodlands; marine shorelines and estuaries; wetlands and riparian areas, and working forests, farms and ranches in Thurston, Mason, Lewis and Grays Harbor Counties. The trust is responsible for 71 properties totaling 5,500 acres. It owns half the properties and holds conservation easements on the others.
The small nonprofit could not do this work without the help of the 200-plus volunteers who put in more than 2,000 hours a year building trails and organizing tool sheds, pulling invasive plants, planting trees and much more.
In addition to monitoring and documentation, Barreca and Yake have tabled events, pulled weeds, encouraged friends to volunteer and put CLT in their estate plans.
By stewarding the Kaiser Road/Evergreen Parkway wetland, they have documented incremental but significant changes since 2002, most notably increased storm water runoff from a nearby housing development. Barreca cites growth as, “a big incentive for being involved with Capitol Land Trust.”
She praises Thurston County for the ordinances that offer some land protection but she maintains that “in a world without Capitol Land Trust, these natural areas could become big housing developments.”
Barreca and Yake are not anti-growth and neither is CLT. They know people are coming. But they hope new residents will find merit in conserving natural areas and they hope to see developers do right by the area’s habitat. “If the people who love nature can contribute to organizations like Capitol Land Trust, we can mitigate the effects of population growth,” said Barreca.
Barreca and Yake have seen overpopulation and its fallout firsthand. A trip to China proved eye-opening. While Yake stressed that, “China is really variable; it is not one place,” Barreca was astonished by the amount of terraced farming needed to feed so many people.
“What struck me was how high in the mountains they had developed agriculture,” she said. “There weren’t forests anymore.”
Conversely, the pair has traveled to nature preserves where they paddled, swam, hiked and sat quietly. “Some of these places still exist because there were people who valued nature more than potential profit,” said Barreca.
She believes the South Puget Sound is one such place, thanks in part to the work of Capitol Land Trust and its public, private and nonprofit partners. The involvement of community leaders, scientists, planners, citizens, and business owners is mission-critical to CLT, which has received grants from such diverse organizations as Thurston County, the Salmon Recovery Funding Board, and The Community Foundation of South Puget Sound. Because civic engagement is also imperative, the public now has full access to the new trail at the Randall Reserve on Mud Bay, the Bayshore Preserve near Shelton, and the newly-purchased Darlin Creek Preserve near Capitol State Forest.
Standing in a clearing on the Kaiser Road property, Barreca points out a bright yellow bird in the trees. The bird, a Wilson’s warbler, takes flight and Barreca’s eyes sparkle. “I am relieved when I hear a Swainson’s thrush sing, or see a salmon return to a local stream. There is still wildness in this place.”
