Squaw Creek grant is part of a national program

The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and Wal-Mart released details last week about their new partnership in a national conservation program.

Wal-Mart has committed $35 million for the next 10 years to conserve at least one acre of priority fish and wildlife habitat for every acre that the company has developed for stores and warehouses.

Some $400,000 has been committed to the Deschutes Basin Land Trust as one of the program’s five initial projects. The Land Trust will receive funds to acquire a conservation easement on an 1,100-acre private ranch a dozen miles north of Sisters.

The Rimrock Ranch, owned by Bob and Gayle Baker, includes about two miles of Squaw Creek.

Under the name “Acres for America,” the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation will manage the program financed by the retail giant. Announcement of the “Acres for America” program was made April 12 at the National Geographic Society headquarters in Washington, D.C. Those attending included Interior Secretary Gale Norton, John Berry, executive director of the foundation, and Mike Duke, president and CEO of Wal-Mart Stores Division (USA).

Tying the land acquisition to Wal-Mart’s development would mean that at least 138,000 acres of critical wildlife habitat would be permanently conserved nationally. Land conserved will benefit a variety of wildlife.

“Wal-Mart is the first corporation to commit to offsetting its entire developed land use for conservation,” said Max Chapman, Jr., chairman of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. “We introduced the concept of the offset program to Wal-Mart last year and they were quick to say yes.”

Five signature projects were announced by the foundation. Besides the Squaw Creek project in Oregon, others are in the Catahoula National Wildlife Refuge in Louisiana, the Sherfield Cave and the headwaters of the Buffalo National River in Arkansas, the North Rim of the Grand Canyon in Arizona, and the Downeast Lakes Forestry Partnership in Maine.

Future projects will be selected from those nominated by local, state, and national conservation organizations and public land management agencies.

The Rimrock Ranch easement is still in the discussion stage. If approved, it would protect Squaw Creek habitat for Chinook salmon, bull trout and steelhead as well as deer and elk range.

The ranch would remain in one ownership as the Baker’s home and not be divided into a future high-density development.

DBLT has preserved property throughout Central Oregon, including in the Metolius Basin and the Camp Polk Preserve north of the City of Sisters.