🎧 Power of Place Episode #24 | Mount Epiphany - Nick Bratton

Power of Place - Stories of the Pacific Northwest

Join us in this episode to hear from Nick Bratton, Senior Director of Policy for Forterra. Since 1989, Forterra has secured over 275,000 acres of land through over 450 land transactions. From the farmlands and river canyons of Yakima to the estuaries and forests of Washington’s coastline, Forterra safeguards a healthy environment. The organization also fosters community resilience through land acquisition, In 2013 Forterra negotiated and fronted the purchase from a private timber company of over 50,000 acres in the headwaters of the Yakima Watershed – the largest land transaction in Washington State in 45 years. Farsighted collaboration with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Department of Natural Resources created the enormous Teanaway Community Forest, a wooded recreation area about the size of Seattle and an inspiring model for public-private partnerships in land conservation. Nick explains how Forterra has guided smaller cities (including Issaquah, Tukwila, Everett, and Kirkland) as they transition from suburbs into small urban areas while embracing land stewardship. He provides a primer on Forterra's innovative transfer of development rights (or TDRs) from the rural areas and wilderness to cities like Seattle, to the benefit of both. “We had to integrate funding and business models and enterprise from the private sector.” - Nick Bratton on public-private partnership in conservation