Category Overview
As Washington continues to grow, many of our most beautiful areas are threatened with development. In addition, native ecosystems are receding, and important wildlife habitat and migratory pathways are being cut off. The Natural Areas category helps combat this by funding projects that protect wildlife habitat and rare geological features while also preserving public access for back-country recreation.
Project Highlights
DNR will use this grant to buy approximately 29 acres of privately-owned property on Cypress Island. DNR owns approximately 95% of the island for conservation purposes. In combination, these natural areas are unique due to size relative to other undeveloped landscapes in the San Juan Islands, and because of ecological diversity. As the fifth largest and most undeveloped island in the San Juan archipelago, Cypress offers the best example of a relatively undisturbed, diverse terrestrial and marine ecosystem. This application will get us further towards our conservation goals on Cypress, but will not complete them.Specifically, these parcels contain the following ecological elements:Property A: Helps complete protection of intact, undeveloped Puget Sound nearshore habitat, and upland dry forest contiguous with existing NRCA lands.Property B: Protects undeveloped upland dry forests contiguous with protected NRCA lands and provides important buffer to one of the highest quality dry forest plant communities in the state.Property C: Helps complete protection of intact, undeveloped Puget Sound nearshore habitat and rocky bluffs, as well as undeveloped upland dry forest, all contiguous with protected NRCA lands.Property D: Helps complete protection of one of the highest quality dry forest plant communities in the state, among the most imperiled communities statewide and globally.