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​Land Acquisitions

​BPA works with land conservancies, tribes, states and others to identify and protect key parcels for wildlife habitat. Our partners negotiate land acquisitions or conservation easements to protect these parcels. Easements allow uses such as timber harvest or cattle ranching to continue as long as they are done in a way that is compatible with the fish and wildlife habitat goals on the property. 

The agencies improve the land where needed – removing noxious weeds, planting native vegetation, installing fencing – and then preserve the land into perpetuity for wildlife habitat.

Through agreements like the Willamette Wildlife Settlement, BPA has provided long-term assurances for acquisition funding so sponsors like Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife can develop innovative cost-sharing programs.
​The Fish and Wildlife Lands Deskbook

The Fish and Wildlife Lands Deskbook helps guide internal BPA staff in the steps necessary to successfully acquire, manage, monitor, and protect real property interests for the benefit of fish and wildlife.  While it was developed for internal agency use, nothing in this deskbook is protected or privileged information, so any part of it may be shared externally.

 
​Tribes Regain Homelands

Land acquisitions present another opportunity to benefit the Indian tribes that were so profoundly affected by European American settlement and development of the Columbia River Basin. Every tribe in the Basin receives fish and wildlife funding from BPA today. Many have used these funds for historic firsts.

The Nez Perce Tribe returned to Oregon and Chief Joseph’s homelands for the first time in a century when BPA funding allowed the tribe to buy over 17,000 acres in northeast Oregon. The Cowlitz Tribe is an active partner in Columbia River estuary mitigation projects and is establishing a land base after finally being recognized again by the Federal government in 2000.

The Burns Paiute Tribe’s Malheur River Wildlife Mitigation Project (above) includes close to 32,000 acres* of deeded and leased lands stretching for seven miles along the Malheur River. protects and restores wildlife habitat affected by grazing and agricultural land uses in the Malheur Basin in southeast Oregon.  Acquired in 2000 through an MOA with BPA, the Project is culturally significant to the BPT. It lies within the Tribe’s original reservation and aboriginal territory where tribal members historically lived, hunted, gathered and fished.


The Logan Valley Wildlife Mitigation Site (right), in southeast Oregon’s Logan Valley, is part of a 1,760 acre parcel acquired by the Burns Paiute Tribe with BPA funding. The Logan Valley and surrounding areas were once occupied by the Wadatika people – ancestors of the current day Burns Paiute Tribe, and was important for gathering, hunting, fishing, trading and sacred cultural activities. The area has diverse habitats, including mountain meadows, uplands forests, wetlands and sagebrush steppe which support a number of listed species, including threatened bull trout.  In addition to the wildlife benefits, the acquisition will ensure access for the BPT to once again practice their traditional tribal cultural activities in the area.

* The site includes the Denny Jones Ranch (a 6,385 acre deeded parcel), and tracts of land leased by the Bureau of Land Management (a 4,154 acre parcel) and the Oregon Division of State Lands (a 21,242 acre parcel), each with grazing allotments. 
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