a family’s conservation legacy

 The Olson family has a deep reverence for their 530-acre property, located just outside of Deary, ID, that has been cared for by the family for three generations, dating back 125 years. In recent decades, Keith and Rhonda Olson and their extended family have returned to the family land each year on Memorial Day. The annual gathering has provided a time for the family to celebrate and reflect on the hands of past family members who have worked the land and contemplate its future. It was at one of these family gatherings that they came to terms with the way the landscape around them was changing.

With memories of a childhood where nary a home site could be seen from any direction, a realization crept in that development pressure was taking hold on this land. One of the largest remaining tracts of privately held land in the Big Bear Creek watershed, the family’s care and stewardship over generations has created a refuge for wildlife from black bear and elk to spawning anadromous steelhead. A mosaic of wetlands, meadows, and forest, their property is a corridor between the forested mountains above and the rugged river canyons below.

STANDING FOR WILDLIFE

Like many families across the Palouse, the Olson family is determined to protect the waterways, grasslands, and forests that comprise their family land for the countless creatures that depend on this landscape for survival.  On a landscape scale, this special property is situated in the middle of a critical wildlife climate corridor – a place where animals, birds, pollinators, and insects can move and adapt more easily in the face of a changing climate. 

The Olsons have seen a living menagerie of species live and thrive on the property: large predators like bear and cougar; iconic species like elk, moose, and deer; and an astonishing diversity of birds and insects.  The waters that flow cool and clear through the property support native fish, aquatic critters of all shapes and sizes, and provide a healthy, functioning wetland ecosystem.  Where many other landowners are seeking financial benefit from land sales or conversion to alternate uses, Keith and Rhonda are committed to standing not only for wildlife, but the rich biota of our region. 

They are bravely foregoing the path of least resistance—one that could provide personal profit from subdivision and sale of this land. Instead, they sought out a trusted partner they could turn to serve as a long-term steward and conservation champion of their beloved land—an organization and community of support to speak for the natural life within and perpetuate their family’s conservation legacy. 

PARTNERING FOR PERPETUITY

Saving or losing the family land has become the defining moment of Keith and Rhonda’s retirement years as they reach a golden age where the legacy of their elders rests heavily on their shoulders.  Thanks to your continued support, the Olsons are realizing their dream for the land, the animals, and the community right now.  In an extraordinary partnership between the family, Palouse Land Trust, and our partners at Inland Northwest Land Conservancy (INLC) in Spokane, the Olson Family Conservation Preserve has become reality.

With the guiding values and wishes of the Olson Family, INLC worked throughout the summer to create the conservation easement, which guarantees permanent protection of the amazing attributes of the property into perpetuity.  With protections in place, the Olsons will soon generously donate the property to the loving and caring hands of PLT.  We will work with INLC (just like any of our very own conservation landowners) to ensure that the conservation values and goals of the property are fulfilled forever.

Management will be guided by the terms of the conservation easement, and we’re hard at work on a long term management plan that will honor the wishes of the Olson Family to protect the rich wildlife habitat, clean waters, open space, and working forest aspects of the property, while also creating opportunities to share the space with community as a whole. 

A BRIGHT FUTURE AHEAD

While we celebrate the finalization of legal documents and the creation of the Olson Family Conservation Preserve, it is only the beginning.  With your continuing support, an active weed management program will be developed alongside restoration and habitat improvement projects to support wildlife and total habitat health.  The Family’s rich conservation legacy and land management practices will be continued through sustainable forestry management, participation in the USDA Conservation Reserve Program on a portion of the property, and use of the site as a learning laboratory for ecosystem health.

Looking a little further down the road, we are thrilled to fulfill the Olson’s vision of sharing the space in a “light on the land” manner with the creation of non-motorized public-access trails and amenities that will allow visitors to visit and enjoy the property in gentle, quiet ways that will not adversely impact the wild inhabitants.  Interpretive signage, activities and educational tours for local schools and organizations will connect hundreds of people in the immediate Deary area – and our entire region – to this incredible space.

Thank you for joining with the Olsons to celebrate the power of land, the power of conservation, and the power of community to protect the special places that define us on the Palouse and north Central Idaho.  We can’t wait to welcome you to this special space soon. 

PRO-LEVEL PARTNERS

Managing land and waters for health, sustainability, and resiliency is a tall order for any landowner.  Coupled with the added complexities of fragile ecosystems, public use, and the impacts of a changing climate, stewarding important landscapes is a monumental task.  And one we can’t do without some A-team, all-star, pro-level partners.

Partners like Mike McManus and the Idaho Department of Lands.  Mike and his crew, based out of the Deary office, are indispensable partners providing technical assistance, highly skilled labor, and expertise.

This summer, the IDL team held chainsaw training on the Olson Family Conservation Preserve. Not only did PLT staff get a refresher on safe chainsaw use, but the crew put their training to work thinning dead trees and reducing fire fuels along Highway 8.  They felled dead trees, cut logs to burnable lengths, and stacked the wood to make it available to members of the community.  Working together, IDL helped to reduce the threat of wildfire and helped warm homes of neighbors in need. 

“We have helped PLT with some beetle killed timber removal and blowdown removal within the Idler’s rest preserve in the past and when we heard about the new preserve potentially coming to fruition on the Olson property we saw it as a great opportunity.

For me I recreate and enjoy these areas as a member of the community and ensuring they are around for all of us to use and enjoy I see as the real benefit and I look forward to a continued partnership with PLT and the Idaho Department of Lands”   

When they’re not busy training at the Olson Preserve, IDL is a powerhouse of help at Idler’s Rest, too.  This fall, the crew helped to sort slash piles from the major safety project in the Cedar Grove to prepare for controlled burning this winter.  From the piles, they salvaged usable firewood, and again cut and stacked the wood for free use by the community.