Built from the Ground Up
What started as 29 sites has grown to more than 2,400, with more added every year.
The Conservation Areas Program didn't start in a boardroom. It started in the field.
In the early 1980s, foresters working across the landscape began noticing places that stood out—a heron nesting colony, an old forest, a rare plant where no one expected to find it. They marked those places on their maps and kept them out of harvest plans.
For years, that's how it worked: care rooted in what people saw and knew on the ground.
By 1996, we'd formalized that care into a program, backed by science, mapping, and long-term planning. The goal was straightforward: make sure the places that mattered ecologically and culturally were recognized, recorded, and protected.
At the time, programs like this were uncommon in private forestry. Building one reflected something we'd learned over the years: healthy forests depend on more than trees alone. Some places do their best work when they're left intact.
As our knowledge and tools improved, so did the program. Ecologists and researchers helped verify sites. Mapping technologies refined the site boundaries. The database grew. But the source never changed. It's still the observations made by people in the field who know the land.
Today, the program keeps growing the same way it always has: one site at a time, guided by experience, supported by science, and grounded in a commitment to the long term.