Skyline Forest: Patience and persistence will get us there

The Bulletin’s Feb. 27 article on Skyline Forest (Skyline Forest deal at an impasse, A1) raised the prospect that a deal to conserve and permanently protect most of central Oregon’s 33,000-acre Skyline Forest is at an impasse. The Deschutes Land Trust views things a bit differently.

The Land Trust has been working since 2004 to acquire and protect Skyline Forest — Bend and Sisters’ 33,000-acre backyard. Our goal is to conserve the forest for wildlife habitat, protect our scenic view, connect regional recreational trails, and maintain timber jobs. Why? Because Skyline Forest is critical to the future of Central Oregon.

In the intervening years, we’ve certainly seen the project ebb and flow. Most recently, as The Bulletin pointed out, the owners of Skyline Forest have been considering a return to the Oregon Legislature to amend the 2009 Skyline Forest Bill. That legislation provided a framework for the land trust to conserve 31,800 acres of Skyline Forest and another 34,700 acres of the old Gilchrist Tree Farm along the Little Deschutes River — a total of more than 100 square miles of Central Oregon’s private forests permanently conserved.

The reality is that while the 2009 Skyline Forest legislation established the framework for a deal, a formal and legally binding commitment from the landowner has not yet been made. Recognizing that the recession created economic uncertainties for the landowner, the ’09 legislation provided the owners, Fidelity National Timber/Cascade Timberlands, with up to five years to initiate a transaction with the land trust. Today, we’re 1½ years into that five-year window.

Unfortunately, the lack of a firm date and binding commitment for a transaction also pose some very real challenges for the Land Trust. Most notably, the Land Trust can’t begin raising private funds to purchase a property that the landowner hasn’t formally committed to selling. While the land trust has managed to secure $4 million in federal Forest Legacy Program funds, even these funds will be at risk if the landowner doesn’t make a formal commitment in the near future.

The owners of Skyline Forest now say that the cost of development is higher than they anticipated and that they need additional development rights beyond what they agreed to in 2009. On the opposite side of the table, Central Oregon Landwatch, a local land use group and participant in the 2009 negotiations, objects on the basis that “a deal is a deal,” pointing out that it made numerous compromises to reach agreement in 2009.

Yet, the project is most definitely not at impasse, since the parties continue to talk and all appear committed to seeing Skyline Forest become a reality. It’s important to recognize that the ups and downs that we’ve witnessed with Skyline aren’t at all unusual, as most complicated transactions go through countless twists and turns. What is unusual is that so much of this transaction has played out in public view, since most Deschutes Land Trust projects don’t get announced until a formal, binding transaction is well in place.

In the case of Skyline, the complexity, size and significance of the project necessitated that the trust announce its intentions early in order to engage the community and encourage the landowner to consider conservation. Ultimately, our success with Skyline will come as it does with all of our projects, namely from the ability to patiently but persistently continue talking with a landowner for as long as it takes. To date we’ve been able to do that, because the community has generously supported the Land Trust’s work.

The Deschutes Land Trust’s quest to conserve Skyline Forest began seven years ago, and we’ve seen several notable successes along the way. The land trust remains committed to the permanent protection of Skyline Forest for the wildlife, recreational trails, scenic views and forest jobs that it can provide.

Skyline Forest is simply too important to the future of Central Oregon. So, as long as the community is behind us, we’ll be at the table ... for as long as it takes.

Brad Chalfant is the executive director of the Deschutes Land Trust. He lives in Bend.