Perched above the Klickitat River in south-central Washington,  the Klickitat Oaks, Phase 1 property is home to priority oak and pine woodland habitat and is a strategic link in wildlife migration corridors, including the Pacific Flyway.

This area of Klickitat County hosts some of the most extensive and highest quality Oregon white oak habitat in the state of Washington. Oaks are fire and drought tolerant, so conserving landscapes like this one is a powerful step in increasing this region’s climate resilience.

Without action, the quality and extent of Oregon white oak habitats — like Klickitat Oaks, Phase 1 — are at risk from multiple stressors, including development, habitat fragmentation, unnatural fire suppression and conifer encroachment.

Atira Conservation partnered with Columbia Land Trust to conserve this 2,666-acre parcel, the first of three planned phases Colombia Land Trust intends to conserve over the next few years. Together, the Klickitat Oaks parcels will cover about 8,000 acres of ecologically and culturally important land and secure public value forever.

The newly protected site benefits at least 15 priority wildlife species, including western gray squirrel (Sciurus griseus), Lewis’s woodpecker (Melanerpes lewis), acorn woodpecker (Melanerpes formicivorus), mule and black-tailed deer (Odocoileus hemionus and O. h. columbianus), northern spotted owl (Strix occidentalis caurina), and golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos), and connects state-conserved lands to secure a travel corridor for larger mammals.

This site also advances local community priorities including public access to large open space tracts, and it fills a major gap in a 30-mile corridor of protected lands between the Columbia River and Yakama Indian Reservation.

Strategic, landscape-scale projects like this are the only way to maintain the biodiversity and ecological integrity of these landscapes, and conservation at this impactful scale is not possible without strong partnerships.

The acquisition of Klickitat Oaks, Phase 1 was made possible by Columbia Land Trust’s partnership with the Yakama Nation and The Conservation Fund; and through funding from the Washington Wildlife and Recreation Program and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation’s American the Beautiful program (subgrant awarded via Yakama Nation). Additional lead gifts were provided by Atira Conservation, The Conservation Alliance, Hollis Foundation, Marcia H. Randall Foundation, Maybelle Clark MacDonald Fund, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, and Vancouver Audubon Society and Mary Ann Goodrich, in addition to generous support from other private foundations and individual contributors.

• Total Transaction Cost: $7,970,000
• Atira Conservation Support: $70,000