What We Do

Our community education and outreach program builds support for conservation by development of knowledge about and appreciation for our natural areas and ecologically sound local food production. The Trust invites the community members and visitors of all ages to lectures, classes, and hands-on workshops. We train a team of dedicated volunteers to do important research and monitoring on our properties.

Nehalem Teaching Trail

The Lower Nehalem Community Trust is working with the The Tillamook Estuaries partnership to establish a Nehalem Teaching Trail, an informal path that will connect six “stations” each planted with a group of species characteristic of a specific habitat in the Nehalem River basin.  Interpretive signage will identify plants and explain how they were once used by indigenous residents  for food, medicine, shelter, clothing, tools and ceremony.

With funding in 2007 and 2008 from the Tillamook County Cultural Coalition, as well as funding and volunteer contributions from the Trust, Dr. Doug Deur, local ethnobiologist and author of Keeping It Living: Traditions of Plant Use and Cultivation on the Northwest Coast of North America, has completed planning for trail.  The resulting documents include:

Photos and drawings of the plants (2.1 MBpdf).  

Nehalem Teaching Trail Map (Spring 2009)