Willamette Confluence: Stakeholder Engagement Fall 2024 Application

The Willamette Confluence is a place of coming together both ecologically and socially and it presents several potential paths toward the future. With 1,305 acres of mixed riparian and upland oak habitat in the Mount Pisgah area of the upper Willamette Valley, the property provides significant wildlife habitat near the urban core. Located where the Coast Fork and Middle Fork of the Willamette River converge, the area is rich in biodiversity and opportunities for restoration, collaborative management, and community interaction. The Confluence property is bordered by City, County, nonprofit-owned, and private lands, and is adjacent to the most visited park in Lane County. McKenzie River Trust acquired the property through transfer from The Nature Conservancy in Oregon in 2023. Since then, we have been getting to know the land and better understand the opportunities for addressing regional goals related to water quality, fish and wildlife habitat, and urban planning. We are seeking support in a Stakeholder Engagement grant to convene with partners to develop a shared vision and action plans for coordinated stewardship and community engagement across the Confluence, adjacent lands, and further upstream in the watersheds. The Stakeholder Engagement project will include the development of a shared 20-year conservation vision and more specific habitat restoration and community engagement action plans that integrate with watershed assessments, strategic initiatives, and other planning approaches partners rely on. Key collaborators are those making land management decisions in the area, including city, county, and state governments, utility boards, nonprofit organizations, Tribal representatives, and neighbors.

This Stakeholder Engagement process will unite individuals, nonprofits, utilities, and government agencies making land management decisions within roughly five miles upstream and downstream of the Willamette Confluence property through a shared 20-year vision and integrated conservation action plan. The projects geographic scope focuses on McKenzie River Trust’s Willamette Confluence property, Lane County’s Howard Buford Recreation Area (Mount Pisgah), and the lower reaches of the two forks of the Willamette River. This work will provide a prioritization framework for a broad coalition of land managers to advance shared goals for land stewardship, habitat restoration, conservation education, public engagement, and infrastructure investments in the area. The resulting vision and associated action plan will align landowners and managers along the Coast and Middle forks of the Willamette River to promote natural processes, including floodplain function. Anticipated conversations between restoration practitioners, neighboring landowners, and utility boards and districts will focus on preserving clean water, increasing cold water refugia and off-channel habitat, and maintaining and preparing for stand replacement in riparian corridors. The Willamette Confluence property is protected for fish and wildlife through two third-party conservation easements, ensuring that future management and restoration actions remain focused on Upper Willamette salmon and steelhead, alongside other Oregon Conservation Strategy species. We anticipate this process contributing to broad community alignment between a range of land owners and managers that will result in land protection, restoration, and stewardship approaches that strengthen the area as habitat for salmon and steelhead in the Upper Willamette watershed.