Two companies we've covered for their not-always-nice treatment of the environment, Weyerhaeuser and The Boeing Co., came out looking pretty good this morning when their donations of $250,000 and $750,000, respectively, were announced at the Cascade Land Conservancy's annual Conservation Awards Breakfast.

Now, don't confuse the Conservancy with some bleedin'-heart, tree-huggin' enviros. They're all about working with the patricians and corporate powers-that-be in our midst to leverage money to, it's true, conserve land. And they do some straight-ahead habitat conservation projects, like this one.

But if you listen carefully you'll hear that their Cascade Agenda is more geared to preserving "working forests" -- that's timberlands -- and farms, which are not always the best thing for preserving endangered species, although they definitely beat suburbia in that department. With something like 3.5 million people on the way to add to the Puget Sound area's population, we could see The Blob eat up everything in sight, absent a strategy like CLC's.

The Weyerhaeuser and Boeing donations bring to about $15 million the conservancy has raised before even announcing this morning that it wants a total of $20 million for this 100-year Cascade Agenda. There are some interesting ideas in there, such as partnering with developers to create what they call Conservation Villages. Those would cluster 50 to 200 green-built homes with commonly held open space. It sounds like an attempt to preserve open space. Other examples of the group's strategies to protect "working lands" are found in a press release:

 

Creating new public and private financing mechanisms, such as Public Conservation Authorities and Community Forest Bonds, to keep farming and forestry financially viable;

Exploring new revenue streams for foresters and farmers such as environmental mitigation, biosolids application, carbon sequestration, compensation for water recharge services, recreation fees and more;

Developing a regional marketplace for Transfer of Development Rights, allowing landowners to realize real estate appreciation while fostering growth in already developed areas.