1st Tuesday Program: “Following Peregrine Falcons from the Arctic to Chile: The Southern Cross Peregrine Project" Tuesday, November 3rd, 7:00 - 8:30pm at the Twisp River Pub in Twisp

Peregrine falcon, photo by Chris Street

Join us for an exciting presentation by Bud Anderson, raptor biologist and founder of the Falcon Research Group, on the Southern Cross Peregrine Project.  Peregrine Falcons have the longest migration of any raptor in North America, traveling up to 950 miles in a day.  Bud will share fascinating information about these incredible flyers, and show details from following them via satellite transmitters and Google Earth.  Track them yourself at this program or right now at www.frg.org

Please Note: This "1st Tuesday" is weather dependent!  If it is snowing in the mountains on November 3rd, the program will be canceled.  Call the Methow Conservancy the day of the program if you are unsure.

The Twisp River Pub will open at 6:00pm for attendees who would like to purchase food or drinks.  The event is free and open to everyone.  Contact Mary at 996-2870 or info@methowconservancy.org if you have questions.

The Keepers of the Place
Tuesday, November 10th, 6:30pm at the Twisp Senior Center
Thanking and honoring those who have made a lasting contribution to the sustainability and the integrity of the Methow Valley is an important part of Methow Valley culture that many people and organizations strive to do regularly.  Years ago, a small but active group of individuals came together to form “The Keepers of the Place” committee through the local Glorieta School of Sustainability.  This all-volunteer group gives an award annually to one or more individuals to honor them and their work to create a positive and sustainable future for the people and land of the Methow Valley.

This year’s award winners, like many in the past, have made significant contributions to the Methow Conservancy.  Please join us in congratulating Dave & Marilyn Sabold and Mac Shelton for being the 2009 Keepers of the Place Award winners.

An awards ceremony will take place on Tuesday, November 10th at the Twisp Senior Center in the Methow Valley Community Center.  A dessert potluck and social hour starts at 6:30pm with the awards ceremony starting at 7:30pm.

From 1998 to the present, the previous award winners include:  Isabelle Spohn, Mary Poss, Vicky Welch, Mark Skatrud & Friends of the Loomis Forest, Dana Visalli, David Kliegman & Okanogan Highlands Alliance, Susan Koptonak, Jere & Rick Gillespie with the Columbia Bioregional Education Project, Maeyowa, Bruce Morrison, Lee “Bernie” Bernheisel, Kettle Range Conservation Group, Don Johnson, Michael “Buffalo” Mazzetti, Kathleen Hirschstein, Glenn Schmekel, George Wooten, Kent Woodruff, Rob Crandall, Tannis Thorlakson, Sam Lucy, Katharine Bill, Chani Caulfield.

A Conversation with Rick Bass
Please join us on either side of the mountains for this holiday social and unique conversation about the future of the rural west.
Help us celebrate another amazing year of conservation in the Methow with renowned nature writer Rick Bass.  We’ll ring in the holiday season with social time, and desserts and beverages.  Both events are free and open to everyone.  Books will be signed and sold.

	Seattle:  December 7th, 7:00pm at the Lake     Washington Rowing Club     910 N. Northlake Way in Fremont.  Lots of     parking is available!     Winthrop:  December 8th, 7:00pm at the     Winthrop Barn.  This event will also serve as     our December lecture (“1st Tuesday”).

Rick Bass’s works are concerned with the nature of the human heart and the heart of nature.  He lives in the remote Yaak Valley near Troy, Montana, where he has worked, through his words, for the last 20+ years to protect wild and rural places. 

He has written over twenty books and is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize and an O. Henry Award.  He was a finalist for The Story Prize in 2007 for his short story collection The Lives of Rocks. He was a finalist for the 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award for Why I Came West.

Rick fervently believes that there are still rural places in the west, like the Methow Valley, where small groups of people can make monumental positive change for the future of a place.  His latest book, The Wild Marsh: Four Seasons at Home in Montana, is not just a celebration of his home, it is also a powerful argument for becoming intimate with the places we’ve all chosen to call home.

Imagine the Methow Honor Roll
Thanks again to all of you who have helped make the Imagine the Methow Campaign such a success!  One of the striking features of this campaign is that a diverse group of community members have come together to “vote” for conservation by adding their support.  These votes are creating new, exciting opportunities for conservation, specifically by leveraging private contributions to allow the Valley to successfully compete for public dollars for conservation.  Here’s a quick story:

At 3:15 on a recent Friday afternoon, Executive Director Jason Paulsen’s phone rang.  The person on the other end was from the Federal Farm and Ranchlands Protection Program.  He explained to Jason that some other states had not been able to effectively use program dollars and so they had been redirected to Washington.  He was calling the Methow Conservancy because of our track record for getting projects done.  He said, “We can help you fund 50% of your top two conservation projects for farm and ranchlands if you know you can get a private match for these dollars.”  Jason was able to say confidently, for the first time in the Conservancy’s history, “we can do that.”  By 4 pm, a contract had been faxed and was in his hands. 

That’s just one of the stories from the campaign: bringing public and private dollars together to make unprecedented conservation opportunities possible on the ground.  This community—people who know and love the Methow Valley—make such multiplying opportunities possible.  It is a good reminder that a small group of people can have an incredible impact that will last for generations.  Together, we can ensure the Methow Valley is the western mountain valley to get it right—successfully balancing conservation and growth.

Once again, we send a big thank you to everyone who has “imagined” the Methow with us.  Every Friday we update the campaign honor roll – a listing of all the individuals and organizations who have supported the campaign.  Click here to see the latest list.  If you haven’t yet joined the campaign, or if you know someone who would be interested in this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, please contact Sarah Brooks.

It’s Annual Fund Membership Renewal Time
November marks the beginning of our annual membership drive.  While the Imagine the Methow Capital Campaign is a special fundraising effort to specifically raise funds for unique land protection opportunities, it is our Annual Fund that keeps our office running and our conservation work possible.  Simply put, it is the engine that fuels our conservation work.  Our Annual Fund sustains our operating budget – with two-thirds of our operating income coming from the donations of members like you! 

Our 2008-09 Annual Report provides a great overview of the education, stewardship, and conservation work that your annual fund membership makes possible.  Within a few days of this E-news, all of you who are on our mailing list should receive our Fall/Winter 2009 Newsletter and our 2008-09 Annual Report as one piece of mail.  If you don’t receive them, are not on our mailing list, or want us to send one or both documents to someone you know, contact us!  You can also find them as PDFs here.

You should receive a renewal or new member packet in the mail this month.  This is the one time of year we specifically ask you to join or renew your Annual Fund membership.  Though many of you give during other times of the year, and are welcome to do so, we do not track or send renewals on a monthly basis or send appeals throughout the year.

If you have already renewed your membership, thank you!  If you are a member and need to renew, keep your eyes out for your renewal packet in the mail in the next few weeks.  If you are on our mailing list but not yet a member, you should receive a new member invitation.  Otherwise, feel free to contact us or click here if you’d like to join our efforts! (And, if you don’t know which category you are in, don’t worry.  We’ll let you know in the mail!). 

Thank you very much for your support!  We could not protect the Methow Valley that we all know and love without your help.  We welcome your thoughts and questions anytime.  Reach us at 509-996-2870 or info@methowconservancy.org.

Field Notes from the National Land Trust Alliance conference
Did you know that there are over 1,600 land trusts in the United States?  A nation-wide organization called the Land Trust Alliance hosts an annual conference, called “Rally,” where organizations like the Methow Conservancy get together to share resources, success stories, and challenges.  Every year, we try to send one or more staff and Board members to the annual conference.  This year, the conference was in Portland and we were lucky enough to have five staff and one Board member attend to further their education and bring home information and tools to help us protect the Methow.  Here are some notes from their recent trip.

Eric Bard, Stewardship Associate:
For me, the conference was an inspiring reminder of the how the greater land trust movement, along with the work we do, is an ever-growing and very crucial piece of land and habitat conservation throughout the country.  It was great to come home with charged batteries and new ideas.  Several of the stewardship workshops I attended highlighted the many challenges and issues we face in aiming for conservation “in perpetuity” (from climate change to enforcement issues), along with best management practices to help overcome them.  A highlight for me was the idea of a citizen science outreach event known as a “Bioblitz”.  Citizens and scientists were brought together for a two-day event to inventory key ecological data.  Through this educational outreach event a wealth of useful scientific data can be gathered to put to use for inspiration, documentation and decision making.  Maybe you will see an opportunity to become a citizen scientist for the Methow Valley in the future!

Jeanne White, Conservation Project Manager:
I enjoyed the opportunity to gain perspective and knowledge at the LTA rally.  I attended sessions on tax implications of donated easements, how to amend an easement while avoiding the pitfalls of private inurement or private benefit, and a session on how to do the “right” thing when faced with complex hypothetical easement transactions.  I think this kind of educational opportunity for staff is extremely important to doing our jobs well and with confidence.  It is also great to know that we have a nation full of land trusts doing what we do to the highest standard of care.

Julie Grialou, Conservation Planner:
The rally was inspiring for me, and I learned as much from casual conversations and networking as I did from the actual workshops.  I really appreciated the diversity of land trusts present at the rally.  I was able to talk with an individual representing an all-volunteer land trust in interior Alaska, individuals from land trusts similar to ours, and individuals from lands trusts with 50+ staff.  It was interesting to learn the large variation in how each land trust approaches landowner outreach.  Coming from a biologist’s perspective, it was also interesting to hear more about land trusts working in relatively urban areas.  In these instances, small isolated patches of land being conserved may not have a lot of biological value, but I gained a greater appreciation for the value of these lands to inspire urban dwellers toward conservation and an appreciation of nature.  Another rally stand-out for me was a Jackson Hole Land Trust presentation on the long ecological effects of conservation easements.  The study compared aerial photos from the 1980’s to the present to compare lands with and without conservation easements.  The results indicated that these 25-year old conservation easements hadsignificantly lower road density, habitat loss, and fencing density (all indicators of habitat quality) compared to similar non-easement lands.

Steve Bondi, Stewardship Director:
I attended five great workshops, and not only were the topics interesting, but the fact that they were taught by a variety of staff from all over the country was something that really struck me.  The sharing of regional and local perspectives, experiences, and trials and errors was invaluable.  The highlight of the Rally for me was actually a pre-Rally tour to experience on-the-ground conservation activities with local conservationists.  The tour was of the Sandy River watershed on the slopes of Mount Hood with Josh Kling, project manager at Western Rivers Conservancy in Portland.  Western Rivers, Portland General Electric, and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) finished removing the 30’ tall Marmot Dam in 2007, opening 50 miles of salmon spawning habitat, and are now finishing a negotiation that will ultimately result in Wild and Scenic River status for most of the Sandy River.  With the dam decommissioning, the Sandy now flows from the Cascade Crest to the Pacific Ocean via the Columbia below Bonneville Dam. 

John Sunderland, Land Project Manager:
I was one of several speakers for a workshop on western land and water conservation transactions and partnerships. I partnered with Lisa Pelly of Washington Rivers Conservancy to present the conceptual framework we use when we work together, and we presented a recently completed conservation easement as an example.  One thing we emphasized was making sure valuable agricultural land stays in production.  A special highlight of Rally was attending a session called "ask the experts.”  Here, I was able to ask legal experts a few complicated questions about potential projects here in the Valley.  The LTA Rally is a great place to network with other land trust staff as well as staff from funding agencies with whom we work.  Meeting people face-to-face who we email and telephone regularly is especially helpful. 

New Members!
Here’s the list of people who became new members over the last month (Sept 25th through Oct 28th).  Thank you to them and all of you who support our work! 

Click here for an up-to-date list of all Imagine the Methow Campaign donations.

Events
Below, you'll find announcements about events or publications (ours and those of other organizations) that we think you might find interesting.

November 3rd: Methow Conservancy “1st Tuesday” Program:  “Following Peregrine Falcons from the Arctic to Chile - The Southern Cross Peregrine Project,” 7:00 - 8:30pm at the Twisp River Pub (pub opens at 6pm).  Join us for an exciting presentation by Bud Anderson, raptor biologist and founder of the Falcon Research Group.  See more details above.

November 10th:  Keepers of the Place Award Dinner & Ceremony, 6:30pm dessert potluck, 7:30pm ceremony at the Twisp Senior Center at the Methow Valley Community Center. See more details above.

November 12th:  The Twisp & Winthrop Libraries present Jack Nisbet, 7pm at the Merc Playhouse. Spokane-based teacher, naturalist and writer, Nisbet will be speaking about his new book, “The Collector: David Douglas and the Natural History of the Northwest.”  The event is free.  Call Sally Portman 996-2685 for more info.

December 7th:  Holiday Bash with Rick Bass in Seattle, 7:00pm at the Lake Washington Rowing Club, 910 N. Northlake Way (in Fremont).  There is plenty of parking!  Help us celebrate another amazing year of conservation in the Methow with renowned nature writer Rick Bass.  We’ll ring in the holiday season with social time, and desserts and beverages.  This event is free and open to everyone.  Books will be signed and sold.  See more details above.

December 8th:  Holiday Bash with Rick Bass in Winthrop, 7:00pm at the Winthrop Barn.Help us celebrate another amazing year of conservation in the Methow with renowned nature writer Rick Bass.  We’ll ring in the holiday season with social time, and desserts and beverages.  This event is free and open to everyone.  Books will be signed and sold.  This event also serves as our December “1st Tuesday” program.  See more details above.

January 5th, 2010:  Methow Conservancy “1st Tuesday” Program:  “The Art of Wildlife Tracking” with Gabe Spence, 7:00 – 8:30pm at the Twisp River Pub (pub opens at 6:00pm).

February 1st, 2010:  Methow Conservancy 2010 Methow Conservation Course starts (meets on Monday evenings through March 8th).  Stay tuned for details!

Get on the ENews mailing list
If you got to this Newsletter through our website, but would like to get the link monthly in an email, let us know by emailing Mary.