Butters Land Trust conserves wild landscapes in Butters Canyon and along Peralta Creek and promotes environmental awareness throughout the watershed, to preserve vital habitat for all Bay Area residents to enjoy.

Background
Butters Canyon is a half-mile stretch of wild, woodsy land along Butters Drive, just off Joaquin Miller Road in Oakland, California. This serene oasis of native trees houses hundreds of species of wildlife and plants and represents a green riparian and wildlife corridor at the headwaters of Peralta Creek. The canyon is enjoyed daily by dozens of neighbors and people around the bay, including many groups of cyclists.

The treasure that is the canyon has become threatened in recent years by housing development, and neighbors organized in 1999 to form Friends of the Last Wild Canyon to preserve it. Searches for funding ran into a continuing difficulty: the need for a legal entity in the neighborhood to hold title to lands and to hold conservation easements.

To most effectively preserve wild lands, neighbors formed the non-profit corporation as the Butters Land Trust in June 2001. Since the inception of the land trust, three creekside lots have been donated for preservation, and two more creekside lots threatened by development have been purchased by a benefactor for preservation. Currently, two creekside lots have been placed on sale, and a third (the original lot at one of the entrances to the canyon) is still pending negotiations with the land trust for purchase.

Immediate Goals
The first priority of the land trust is to raise funds and/or work with benefactors to purchase key creekside properties that are for sale at both ends of the canyon, to preserve the integrity of the canyon and Peralta Creek headwaters. Once assured that key properties are preserved, the land trust will promote the use of conservation easements on undeveloped lots lining the creek and Butters Drive throughout the length of the canyon. Conservation easements allow neighborhoods to balance housing needs with access to green space, since property owners can donate or sell an easement on the portion of their land that remains undeveloped and receive tax benefits in return.

With conservation easements and land acquisitions in place, Butters Canyon becomes a candidate for public funds for projects such as creek restoration or native plant revegetating to improve the health of Peralta Creek and its riparian corridor. Butters Land Trust will work with neighbors along other tributaries and in downstream communities of Peralta Creek to preserve vital habitat so that neighborhoods throughout the watershed can enjoy the benefits of a healthy creek, riparian, and wildlife corridor in perpetuity.