We’re familiar with it here. The rain and the greenery. Flowing rivers, irrigated farm land and clean drinking water.

Land trusts have long been key partners in protecting Oregon's water. These organizations protect and restore habitat for native fish and wildlife. Their role in watershed protection, however, goes beyond species management and contributes to clean and cool water for local communities. For example, when a land trust conserves a healthy forest, this forest maintain the capacity of land to soak up rainwater and snowmelt and release it over longer periods of time.

Yes, land trusts protect land. But they also work to restore it. Those buffers of habitat along waterways create natural filters and shade that cleans and cools water as it travels from its source. Fish like those cool waters. Communities do, too. As Oregon's water needs become more complex, we must utilize natural infrastructure to meet our goals of providing cold, clean and secure water to our communities and the fish and wildlife that depends on it.