The Cascade Land Conservancy is a regional land trust, land stewardship provider and policy center operating in Washington State with headquarters in Seattle and principal offices in King, Kittitas, Mason, Pierce and Snohomish Counties.  The CLC was founded in 1989 and has conserved nearly 150,000 acres of working forests, farmlands and natural areas as well as estuary lands on the Olympic Peninsula and along the Washington Coast.  It provides stewardship services, caring for more than 13,000 acres of land.  Since 2005 it has been the host organization of The Cascade Agenda, which links conserving great lands with creating great communities.

During the summer of 2008, three leaders from conservation, timber and tribal communities sat down to talk about the importance of maintaining working forests on our landscape. We quickly confirmed our belief in cooperation as the key to having both great communities and working forests that provide clean water and air, fish and wildlife habitat, jobs in rural communities and naturally grown wood. As the population grows in our state, new demands will be placed on the land. We want to tell the generations after us to have the courage to work together and try new solutions. We can get a lot more done working cooperatively than we can working separately.

Indian tribes have always inhabited the watersheds of western Washington, their cultures based on harvesting fish, wildlife, and other natural resources in the region.   In 1974, the tribes won a major victory in U.S. vs. Washington (Boldt Decision), which reaffirmed their treaty-protected fishing rights. The ruling - which has been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court - established the tribes as co-managers of the resource entitled to 50 percent of the harvestable number of salmon returning to Washington waters.  Following the ruling, the tribes created the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission (NWIFC) to assist them in conducting orderly and biologically sound fisheries.