Deschutes Land Trust updates image

It's official. The Deschutes Basin Land Trust's "Basin" is down the drain, so to speak.

After 13 years the Land Trust is updating its image with a new Web site, a new logo and - a new name. The changes were revealed this week in an interview exclusive to The Nugget.

"It was just too much of a mouthful," said the Land Trust's executive director Brad Chalfant of their former name. "I was amazed at the number of folks out there who know us but still stumbled over the name. Even some of our regular supporters didn't always know where to put the 'Basin.'"

The changes to the newly christened Deschutes Land Trust aren't just superficial, either.

"We're a relatively young organization, and given the scale of the projects we're pursuing, we decided we needed to build a bigger, stronger organization," Chalfant explained. "We're working on a couple of the biggest conservation projects anywhere in the country, which requires we reach a much wider audience."

The Land Trust was founded in 1995 and acquired its first property in 1996, a 63-acre remnant of the once sprawling Indian Ford Ranch, just north of Sisters. Since then, the organization has grown by leaps and bounds to the point where, now, one current project could add 33,000 acres to the Trust's land management responsibilities.

"Our aim is to become a stronger, more effective, more efficient organization," Chalfant said. "One of the goals of our new Web site is to better explain to the public what we do, so that we can better engage and meet the community's expectations."

Another reason for excising "Basin" from their name is to clarify the Trust's role amidst the increasing list of organizations vying for the public's attention.

"What we do is land," Chalfant said. "The land is the focus of everything we do."

Chalfant feels that the name simplification will help lend some clarity to the Land Trust's role among the various partner organizations that serve the public's conservation interests in Central Oregon.

Although revealed just this week, the changes have been in the works for the last year-and-a-half.

"We were looking at what our capacity was," Chalfant said. "In 13 years we've come a long way, but, in another sense, our work has not changed at all. These adjustments will help us pull off these big, ambitious projects that, hopefully, will engage people's interest. Right now, we're on the cusp of some really great things."

One of the Land Trust's "ambitious" projects is the proposed realignment of Whychus Creek at their 145-acre Camp Polk Meadow Preserve near Sisters. In the 1960s many of the creek's meanders and pools were artificially eliminated. In the process salmon and steelhead habitat was eliminated, too. Now, with hope of restoring anadromous fish runs to the region, restoration of that habitat has taken on a new priority.

"I was disappointed when we weren't able to break ground this year," Chalfant said of the Camp Polk stream project. "The permitting wasn't finalized, so we'll have to wait until next spring."

Of course, the biggest single item on the Land Trust's agenda is the monumental and precedent-setting Skyline Forest project, which is continuing to move forward (see related story, page 4).

"One of the other things we're doing - and it's related to all this - was to make the decision to move forward with the national accreditation for land trusts," Chalfant said.

Accreditation is a new opportunity that results in formal certification by an independent commission.

"It helps assure that we're truly serving the public and meeting the highest professional standards in the land trust business," Chalfant said. "What we accomplish is intended to be in perpetuity and to stand the test of time. Meeting the fundamental needs of the public will make us a much stronger organization."

For more about the Deschutes Land Trust, go to http://www.deschuteslandtrust.org.