Three island nature conservation projects received more than $1.5 million recently, all from a 34-year-old property tax program that collects 4 cents per $1,000 of assessed home value.

And the $1.5 million is just a tiny slice of the $9 million pie that King County nature conservation organizations and city governments had access to this year. A look at the state of Washington and its abundance of open spaces is proof that this is a tax program that works and is using King County’s high property values to give back to property owners in the form of nature trails, parks and conservation areas. These areas are why so many choose to live here.

The Conservation Futures Tax (CFT) program was passed by the state Legislature in 1971 during times much like today, when the population in King County was exploding and urban areas began to sprawl. Among these changes, the Washington State Legislature declared its “citizens’ ‘fundamental and inalienable right’ to a healthy environment,” according to King County’s CFT website. The tax measure was among numerous environmental measures approved by the Legislature and signed by the governor at the time.

A video on the county’s CFT website reports that farmland alone in the county decreased from 153,000 acres in 1949 to 53,000 acres in 1979. On the recommendation of the Farmlands Preservation Task Force, King County adopted the CFT in 1982 and was the first county in the state to do so.

The county reports that since the implementation of the tax, more than 100,000 acres, including parts of Maury Island (the former Glacier site), have been protected. The tax is an example of what taxes should do. The 4 cents per $1,000 does not get removed from the pockets of county property owners and put into a nebulous account where it can be rearranged and redirected to other uses. Money from the tax is put into a fund that is annually divvied up among those who apply for the funds, and making the decisions about who gets the funds is a citizen committee of volunteers who review the applications and create recommendations for the executive who hands it off to the county council.

The citizen’s committee is an important part of the process. An article on Washington’s history website, HistoryLink.org, reports that the executive and the county council can make changes to the committee’s list, but “neither has done so without consulting the citizen advisory committee, thus buffering the process from excessive political influences.”

Washington is a state with residents who understand the value of open space and nature and, regardless of opinions about the recent population influx, access to nature has been the state’s best marketing tool and has successfully drawn millions of dollars to the region. The state’s practices can serve as an example to those cities and states which have allowed urban sprawl to overtake natural landscape.