San Juan Preservation Trust

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San Juan Preservation Trust

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Washington's first land trust. Protecting the San Juan Islands forever. Love this place? Help us protect it. Conservation Land Trust. On Coast Salish land.

11/02/2026

What if a single jar of pond water could reveal the hidden creatures living on an island preserve?⁠
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To track and better protect the species that call our protected lands home, we're putting innovative science to work in the field. Through a new partnership with University of Washington researchers, we recently began testing for environmental DNA (eDNA): the microscopic traces of genetic material wildlife leave behind in water and soil as they move through the landscape.⁠
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Stewardship Director Kathleen Foley Lewis collected freshwater samples at several of our protected San Juan Island properties. Sampling was limited, so we can't draw broad conclusions yet, but what turned up was intriguing.⁠
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Phelps Preserve:
Sora (an elusive marsh bird) and native three-spined stickleback

Sugarloaf Preserve:
Native red-legged frogs and rough-skinned newts

Rubin Conservation Easement:
Coho salmon DNA, signaling a waterway that deserves a deeper look for future salmon recovery
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To read the full story, check out the link in the comments below.

10/30/2026

Nothin' scary out here except for how much we love this place. 🎃

10/29/2026

A marsh, but also protected. We protect the land and waters of the San Juans with help from neighbors like you. 🤝

10/27/2026

Did you know? A tree that lives 300 years will keep giving to the forest for 300 more after it dies.

Last Friday’s Walk & Talk at Lopez Island’s Beecher Preserve overflowed with knowledge. Senior Director of Stewardship Dean Dougherty, Land Steward Troy Buckley, and Dr. Marty Main, ecological forester, led a group of curious, nature-loving attendees along the trail.

The questions kept coming, and so did the answers.

We took tree cores and counted rings. We also talked about what Beecher looked like before settlers, when Coast Salish communities, who have stewarded this land for thousands of years, kept it open with regular fire. The trees tell us it was a more open habitat, shaped by regular fire.

So where is Beecher now, and where is it headed? It starts with seeing the forest as one connected system instead of individual trees.

Marty is helping us gather data in our forests so our management plans are built on what the trees are telling us. Most of it, as Dean put it, is work we won’t live to see finished.

10/24/2026

This summer, our stewardship team partnered with the Islands Conservation Corps to put in 2,600 feet of fencing on Red Mill Farm to keep cattle from contaminating San Juan Creek with bacteria.

The creek flows into False Bay Creek and out to the Salish Sea, so something as simple as a fence protects our watersheds and the marine ecosystems downstream.

This summer’s fencing project is now working around the clock to protect our island’s freshwater and coastline.

On this International Day of Climate Action, we celebrate protecting our island’s ecosystems, one project (or fence post) at a time.

10/23/2026

October was busy for the butterflies.

We spent time with volunteers prepping our three habitat plots on San Juan Island for another year of growth, and hopefully Island Marble Butterflies next year.

Volunteers helped remove weeds, spread seeds, and tuck them in for winter with a light soil blanket, so they have the best chance of emerging right when the butterflies do.

The Phelps, Sundstrom, and Frazer homestead preserves each have a fenced garden with its own plot layout and seeding times, so flowering host plants are available as long as possible through the growing season. Phelps has mounds, while Sundstrom and Frazer have flat rows. Native plant plugs and seeds go in alongside field mustard, a host plant for the butterflies.

Sprout well, little seeds!

10/17/2026

Want to see what the future of a forest looks like?

Join us next Friday for a Forestry Walk & Talk with Dean Dougherty, Senior Director of Stewardship at the Beecher Preserve on Lopez Island.

📅 Friday, October 23 · 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
📍 Meet at the Village, Lopez Island
🔗 Register: sjpt.org/events

Lopez Island’s Beecher Preserve: A Place Kept by Many

Centrally located on Lopez Island, the Beecher Preserve protects 35 acres of forest and offers public trails for the community to enjoy. Ward and Doris Beecher made a generous gift to the San Juan Preservation Trust that protects this forest forever and continues to benefit islanders today.

Since acquiring the preserve, the Preservation Trust has partnered with the Lopez Community Trails Network and the San Juan Islands Conservation District to improve the trails. We rerouted access away from a flood-prone area to protect sensitive ravine habitat. Crews reinforced the trail with sticks, gravel, and wood chips to cut down on mud, and a new section now completes a loop you can walk entirely within the preserve.

Much of this land was logged in the past, so the forest is growing back in various stages and competing for space. Working with the Washington Conservation Corps and the Conservation District’s Islands Conservation Corps and Youth Conservation Corps, we’ve been carefully thinning portions of the forest. This strategic, gradual work gives the trees room to grow, helping the forest become more diverse, healthy, and strong, like we see in mature forests.

Recent improvements have been led by our Land Steward Troy Buckley, alongside volunteer preserve stewards Eric Beckman, Andrew Munson, and Brianna Snell, who care for this place on a frequent and self-sufficient basis. Together, they monitor conditions, maintain trails, and manage invasive species.

We’re deeply grateful to the Beecher family, our partners, the numerous volunteers who have joined us for work parties, and our volunteer preserve stewards for helping make this special place what it is today.

📷 Will Fisher and SJPT staff archive

10/16/2026

We’re cutting down trees at Mt. Ben West Preserve. Here’s why. 🌳⁠
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Garry oak ecosystems are disappearing in the San Juans, now covering less than 1% of their historic range. These ecocultural landscapes were maintained through stewardship by Coast Salish communities. When that relationship was disrupted by settler colonialism, fast-growing Douglas firs encroached and shaded out the oaks and their associated prairie species.⁠
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Nearly 200 species depend on these very special oaks. Led by SJPT Land Steward Ben Hallowell, the Island Conservation Corps is expertly thinning out young firs to give the oaks a chance to thrive once more.⁠
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We protected this land in March, thanks to all of you. Restoration is underway, and public access is anticipated in 2028.⁠
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10/14/2026

Last week, a group of neighbors joined Land Steward Troy Buckley for a Walk & Talk at Orcas Island’s Culver Preserve, which is normally closed to the public.

Along the way, the group looked at nurse logs with young trees erupting right out of them, snags pocked with woodpecker holes, and moss and fungi blanketing the last remnants of Douglas firs.

Troy explained how a fallen tree slowly returns to the soil, and why it’s anything but “dead.” The breakdown of a tree is a complex, prolonged process, and even after a tree's death, a downed log is one of the busiest places in the forest!

Want to join us next time? Sign up for our newsletter and be the first to find out about our events.

10/12/2026

Today, on Indigenous Peoples’ Day, our offices are closed as we take time to reflect on the history of the lands we love.

We acknowledge that we live and work in the ancestral and contemporary territories of numerous Coast Salish Tribes and First Peoples. They have cared for these islands since Time Immemorial.

Here’s what we’ve been up to this past year:

We protected more land with cultural access written into permanent land agreements.

Indigenous-led gatherings took place on our preserves.

We’re working side by side with Indigenous partners to care for our preserves.

We’re listening, and we’re grateful for the partners who have shared their time, efforts, and knowledge with us. Our door is always open for the conversations still ahead, and we’re honored to keep learning.

Address

Friday Harbor, WA
98250

Website

https://sjpt.org/

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