Farmers and Conservationists Form a Rare Alliance By JESSICA
KOWAL Published: December 27, 2006 The standoff here between
farmers and environmentalists was familiar in the modern West.
With salmon and wildlife dwindling in the Skagit River Delta,
some environmentalists had argued since the 1980s that local
farms should be turned back into wetlands. Farmers here feared
that preachy outsiders would strip them of their land and
heritage. This year, though, the standoff ended -- at least for
three longtime farmers in this fertile valley, who began
collaborating with their former enemies to preserve wildlife and
their livelihoods. The Nature Conservancy, which usually buys
land to shield it from development, is renting land from the
three farmers on behalf of migrating Western sandpipers, black-
bellied plovers, dunlins, marbled godwits and other shorebirds.
From private and public funds, including a grant from the
federal Environmental Protection Agency, the farmers, David
Hedlin, Gail Thulen and Alan Mesman, will