Located just south of Ashland, Oregon, atop the Siskiyou Crest on the eastern flanks of Mount Ashland, the 2,100-acre Mountcrest Working Forest has seen Hudson Bay explorers, train robbers, and even a U.S. President. Now, after almost 100 years of ownership by the Parsons family, a permanent conservation easement with PFT on almost 1,800 acres, as well as a transfer of 300 acres into the Cascade Siskiyou National Monument, lays the groundwork for the next 100 years that could be even better than the last—for healthy forests, working people, and threatened wildlife.

This conservation easement is also a first for the state of Oregon: public agencies had not previously funded a conservation easement held by a non-profit land trust that both ensures sustainable timber harvest and protects significant habitat for endangered species. Read more about this pioneering project here.