900 Acres of Kitsap Trails and Habitat Protected

Kitsap County, Wash.

Photo at right: A hiker explores trails on Kitsap Peninsula. Photo by Don Willott, courtesy of Forterra

On Dec. 5, 2014, North Kitsap Heritage Park nearly doubled in size thanks to a 366-acre purchase by Kitsap County. Following on the heels of the County’s February purchase of 535 acres and 1.5 miles of forested shoreline on Port Gamble Bay, the Park’s expansion is another step in the Kitsap Forest and Bay Project, a community-driven initiative to conserve as much as 6,700 acres in North Kitsap Peninsula.

North Kitsap Heritage Park is home to green trees for as far as the eye can see. Photo by Scott Pascoe, courtesy of Forterra

Otherwise at risk of conversion into sprawling residential development, the Heritage Park expansion will provide a critical link in the County’s popular regional trail system known as the “String of Pearls.” Its conservation will help protect the local community’s drinking water, wildlife habitat and the headwaters of two priority salmon-bearing streams – Grover’s Creek and Carpenter Creek.

The Kitsap Forest and Bay Project is an effort by Kitsap County, the Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe, the Suquamish Tribe, Forterra, Great Peninsula Conservancy, Pope Resources and many community partners to conserve 6,700 acres of forest and shoreline owned by Pope Resources around Port Gamble Bay on the western shore of Washington’s Puget Sound.

For more information about the Kitsap Forest and Bay Project, go to: http://www.kitsapforestbay.org/