Category Overview
Conserving land along our waterways protects important habitat and helps keep our rivers healthy, clean, and more resilient to drought. Riparian Protection projects conserve and restore fresh and saltwater habitat while protecting fish habitat. In doing so, the grants help provide our families, farms, and fisheries with clean water across the state.
Project Highlights
The Department of Natural Resources proposes to purchase approximately 169 acres within the Stavis Natural Resources Conservation Area (NRCA) near Seabeck in Kitsap County. The acquisition parcels contain important riparian and nearshore habitat along Hood Canal and are subject to alternation and conversion. Acquisition would add them to the conservation landscape in the NRCA and the Kitsap Forest Natural Area Preserve, which combined provide high quality and regionally diminishing wildlife habitat, making up a crucial part of a larger landscape of forest lands on the western Kitsap Peninsula. Acquisition will support wildlife in an urbanizing area and protect Puget Sound nearshore habitat, mature upland forest, and critical wetlands complexes. This acquisition project area is part of the large forested landscape on the western Kitsap Peninsula that provides biodiversity conservation in the Puget Trough. WDFW priority habitats within the conservation area include freshwater wetlands, instream and riparian habitat, estuaries, marine/estuarine shoreline, and mature and old-growth forest.