Greene Conservation Easement

Lopez Island

When Dorothy (Dottie) Greene and her husband went looking for a place to retire thirty-four years ago, they knew there couldn’t be anything better than what they found on Lopez. “I fell in love with the property,” Dottie recalls. “It has a sunset view from a high bluff across the water towards San Juan…there is nothing better.” And “nothing better” is the way Dottie has decided to keep it with her donation of a conservation easement on her Lopez Road acreage in 2001.

“She thought it was a good idea,” said her nephew Charles Givens, whose neighboring property shares similar features and is protected by a conservation easement he and his wife Nancy donated in 2000. In summer, bald eagles roost in shoreline snags, spotted towhees and juncos rustle in the salal understory, and chestnut-backed chickadees and red-breasted nuthatches forage throughout the forest.

Dottie’s easement defines both a “woodland natural area” and “shoreline natural area,” which will remain protected wildlife habitat and scenic open space in perpetuity.