A good week for local land conservation

Published 12:00 pm Friday, June 4, 2004

It’s a good week for land conservation when a million-dollar open space purchase is overshadowed by another, larger deal entirely. So with the first phase of the Pritchard Park/internment memorial purchase (relayed on the front page), we’d be remiss if we didn’t note the City Council’s approval, as expected, of public acquisition of the

49-acre Peters property next to Gazzam Lake.

After some five decades of family stewardship, sisters Olemara Peters and Allison Peters Jablonko have agreed to part with the woodland where they frollicked as children on summer holiday. Their ties to the land remain profound, and their commitment to its protection will continue beyond their ownership. Under the purchase agreement, the property will be protected by a particularly stringent conservation easement that, to our understanding, will preclude bicyclists, horses, dogs and even cell-phone use in the valley that cuts diagonally across the parcel. Their hope is to maintain a veritable wilderness-like experience for generations to come, in the midst of the bustle and sprawl of our developing island.

No cell-phones while hiking? We trust that even the most ostentatiously moving/shaking islanders among us can live with such a restriction (and if not, just what does that say?).

Olemara Peters appeared before the council Wednesday, to offer her thanks to those who helped consummate the deal. She was kind enough to pass her comments along to the Review; as they are as much a thank-you to the community at large, and give some insight into her particular conservation goals, we thought we’d share them with readers:

* * * * *

“My sister and I grew up respecting the land’s right to ‘itself.’ Our mother treasured it, and we, in turn, were brought up to treasure it and keep our part of it safe.

“In recent years (as both family needs and Bainbridge population pressures increased), we realized our forest property is a unique resource, and that we won’t be able to afford, on our own, to continue to protect all of it indefinitely.

“We have been searching for several years for a way to share its special qualities with the community, without their getting lost in the process. Our family appreciates your willingness to consider this proposal. We believe it can establish a foundation for broader sharing of this stewardship. We’re deeply grateful to all the Open Space Commission and Bainbridge Island Land Trust members, and our professional consultants, who’ve been helping design this proposal, over the past months and years. We look forward to continuing to work together.

“My sister and I feel it’s essential

1) To keep this part of the forest safe for the less-recognized elements that the biosphere and the ground have to offer. These include not only the things you can see, not only the smaller or quieter animals and plants, but also the natural sounds, frequencies and energy-fields of each species and of the ground. These are basic earth-functions that are lost among technological sounds, frequencies, fields and chemicals, (and) 2) To provide the public with educational opportunities to reconnect with their own innate faculties, interactive with these earth-functions.

“We intend this forest as a sanctuary, both for these basic earth-functions themselves, and for humans’ opportunity to rediscover them. The conservation easement has been specifically designed, in coordination with the Open Space Commission and the Bainbridge Island Land Trust, to implement these objectives.

“This is important enough to our family that we are willing to sell the property for approximately two-thirds of its appraised fair market value, in exchange for the understanding (set forth in the conservation easement) that the city will protect and honor certain goals that are important to us, in perpetuity. It’s part of our vision here that, as places like this become scarcer, this one will remain a unique gift to future generations of all species.”