If you haven’t heard of Western Rivers Conservancy, you’re not alone. The organization engages in purchasing private lands along Western rivers to conserve habitat, protect wildlife species at risk, and to provide public access. WRG’s motto is Sometimes to save a river, you have to buy it, Way more than a slogan; it’s the core of their operation.
“We advocate by buying land and we’re usually not a policy organization,” said Nelson Matthews, Western Rivers Conservancy president. “There are a lot of other organizations around that are doing that, so we don’t.”
WRC was founded in 1988. “Our focus is on rivers and streams and protecting lands along those areas and we’ve had a real constituency for that,” said Matthews. This approach focuses on protecting habitat, clean water and to provide recreational access, through purchasing property and water rights along those rivers by working with numerous stakeholders including local communities and government agencies from county to federal.
“We started in Oregon but we’ve worked all over the West,” Matthews said. “We have a Conservation Director who helps us with where we should be working to have the most conservation impact with our time and efforts,” said Nelson. To date, WRC has protected habitat and secured access along 260 rivers and over 227,000 acres in nine states.
WRC has projects from Washington south to Arizona and Colorado. They partner with various land stewardship organizations and agencies such as the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Forest Service, tribes, state parks and other nonprofits with the strategy that eventually one of the partners will become the long-term protector of the acquisition. after WRC has secured it. Obtaining funding to purchase a piece of property through the Land and Water Conservation Fund takes time, but WRC fills that gap by being able to move more quickly. “We sometimes take big risks for the environment,” said Mattews. Through various strategies, WRC generally purchases the property, then either brings in a partner they’ve been constantly in touch with or finds a new partner to convey the property to. Here are several of their projects in Oregon.
The Klamath River Blue Creek project was truly a unique project which WRC engaged in with the Yurok tribe in 2009 to protect one of the best salmon streams in the West. WRC formed a long-term partnership with the tribe to purchase 49,097 acres of land from the Green Diamond Resource Company, one of the five largest timberland owner-operators in the U.S, with holdings in nine states and with a commitment to sustainable forestry management. The acquisition included the entire watershed of lower Blue Creek, a tributary to the Klamath, and some frontage along the lower Klamath River.
The upper reaches of Blue Creek at that time were already in protected status within the Siskiyou Wilderness Area. Blue Creek is the first cold-water sanctuary for salmon and steelhead migrating up the Klamath to spawn. The cold waters of Blue Creek allow the fish to cool down in order to survive their migration to spawning beds higher up in the basin. WRC also helped the tribe establish the Yurok Tribe Community Forest that manages the forest lands in a sustainable manner. The final phase of the conveyance to the Yuroks was completed on May 30.
The John Day River is one of the longest, free-flowing rivers west of the Rocky Mountains. From its headwaters in the Blue Mountains, this river snakes its way through the high desert of central Oregon to its confluence with the Columbia River between Arlington and The Dalles. In 2008, WRC purchased 16 miles of river frontage along the John Day which included the Murta Ranch and BLM grazing leases associated with the ranch. Hay Creek, a nearby tributary to the ranch, has one of the few spring-fed areas for spawning and rearing along the John Day River. Herds of bighorn sheep roam the once sagebrush-dotted slopes (the Ferry Fire this summer burned over 5,000 acres of sagebrush and grasslands along the river) and the riparian vegetation supports migratory songbirds that nest in the willows. Burrowing owls, grasshopper sparrows and other species nest in the drier uplands, and deer and elk may also be seen in the area. The property was conveyed to the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department in 2013 and then opened to the public as Cottonwood Canyon State Park.
One of the current local WRC projects is the purchase of a 647-acre parcel of private property at the confluence of Paulina Creek and the Little Deschutes River, which also borders nearly two miles of Paulina Creek and two miles of the Little D. Of primary concern for the property which is bordered on three sides by the BLM, is habitat for the Oregon spotted frog, a federally threatened species. From surveys done in 2023, this Paulina Meadows parcel had the highest density of Oregon spotted frogs along the entire 40-mile stretch of the lower Little D. In addition to this parcel, WRC also purchased another ranch in the area in December 2024 and is currently searching for a partner to permanently conserve this unique location.
“We like to say ‘we punch above our weight,’” said Nelson, referring to a small organization having a large impact in the world of conservation.
This article appears in the Source November 20, 2025.
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