Community Environment

Gig Harbor Land Conservation Fund joins Great Peninsula Conservancy

The Gig Harbor and Key Peninsula Land Conservation Fund raised more than $100,000 and helped to preserve some 30 acres in the area in less than three years since it was founded. Now it’s joining a larger regional conservancy group, hoping to do even more while maintaining a focus on the Gig Harbor and Key Peninsula areas. 

The Land Conservation Fund and the Great Peninsula Conservancy announced this month that they are “joining forces.” That effectively means the Gig Harbor group is merging into the Conservancy, two Land Conservation Fund leaders said.

The GHLCF will become an active committee of the Conservancy, which protects habitats and preserves open spaces across the entire Great Peninsula (which includes Kitsap County and North Mason County). Michael Behrens, who helped organize and lead the Conservation Fund, joined the Conservancy’s board of directors. 

Robyn Denson discusses the Gig Harbor Land Conservation Trust during the 2023 Chum Festival. Photo by Julie Warrick Ammann

Money raised by the Gig Harbor group — both funds already raised and money raised in the future — will still be devoted to the Gig Harbor/Key Peninsula region. 

“All of our funds are going to be kept with Great Peninsula Conservancy, but we have a separate allocation fund,” said Robyn Denson, who helped found the Gig Harbor Land Conservation Fund before her election as a Pierce County councilmember. “So that everything we raise will go to a specific fund that will only be used in the Gig Harbor/Key Peninsula area.” 

Advantages of joining GPC

Behrens and Denson said the merger comes with several advantages. The Conservancy has a full-time staff, while the Land Fund operated mainly on volunteer power. The Conservancy, having been around for more than 24 years, also has established stewardship and follow-up programs to track preserved properties. 

“The biggest (advantage) was that we were already working together on projects,” Behrens said. “It seemed like a natural evolution of our two efforts to really conserve land in an overlapping region.” 

Plus, the Great Peninsula Conservancy was already operating in the Gig Harbor area. It helped organize the fundraising campaign that allowed the preservation of the land that is now Sehmel Homestead Park, according to the Conservancy’s website. 

It holds conservation easements on more than 350 acres of land in the Gig Harbor area, including the Ellis property on Lombard Drive. 

“Gig Harbor and Key Peninsula are priority areas for GPC,” GPC Executive Director Nathan Daniel said in a news release. “These areas are experiencing heavy development pressure and rapid loss of wildlife habitat. We are thrilled to welcome aboard the Gig Harbor and Key Peninsula Land Fund to help raise money to protect ecologically valuable lands in this specific area.” 

Members of the Gig Harbor Key Peninsula Land Conservation Fund at a native plant salvage at the site of the Gig Harbor Sports Complex. Photo by Ed Friedrich

 GPC background

GPC itself formed by the merger of four organizations, including the Kitsap Land Trust, in 2000. It has preserved some 11,000 acres of forests, salmon streams, parks and the like. 

The Land Conservation Fund accomplished much in its two-plus years as an independent organization. It contributed to both phases 3 and 4 of the txʷaalqəł Conservation Area (five acres now preserved in the Donkey Creek watershed) as well as the 15-acre Key Peninsula Parks Lavender Farm purchase, now part of Key Central Forest.

Behrens joins another Gig Harbor resident, Dave Morris, on the group’s board of directors. 

“This is a step for the Gig Harbor Land Conservation group, Behrens said. “We’re excited to see where it goes from here.”