Build Community Resilience

In the last few years, we’ve all had conversations spurred by extreme weather that we haven’t experienced in the past. The climate is changing now, and land conservation organizations, such as the Heritage Trust, play an important role in helping the land they protect become climate resilient.

Climate-resilient land is better able to tolerate flooding, fire, and other disturbances because it is better able to recover. By preserving land and piecing protected parcels together, the Heritage Trust ensures our local species can continue to move within and between areas. Connected lands help to preserve the existing diversity of plant and animal species. Land protection also helps protect natural systems so that the plants, animals, and humans that depend on them will continue to thrive.

Cultivating climate resilience doesn’t stop with the land. By creating opportunities to work together to help our neighbors, we help to create a place in which the community becomes resilient too.

We are so lucky to live where we do. Let’s work together to take care of our land and to care for each other too.

In the spring of 2023, the Heritage Trust partnered with the Lummi Island Fire Department and Whatcom County to launch the There’s No Room for Scotch Broom campaign. We organized volunteers to work together to remove or reduce large stands of Scotch broom on private property, which helped stop the spread of this invasive plant and reduced fire risk on the island.

Grow Another Row

For summer 2023, the Heritage Trust has partnered with five other island organizations to encourage gardeners who have the space to grow another row – or another plant – and to distribute the fresh produce to the island.