About Canopy
A small organization with a ridiculous time horizon.
Fifteen staff. Twelve thousand acres held in conservation. A board chair who used to manage fish & wildlife for a sovereign nation, and a co-counsel who drafts easements meant to last past the next four economies.
Origin · 2003
Founded by a former BLM forester who got tired of writing memos no one would read.
Marisol Quintero spent eleven years in BLM forest management — most of it watching land in her care be sold off, leased, or compromised. In 2003, she walked into a Portland kitchen with three friends, $128,000 in pledged donations, and a thirty-acre option on a clearcut near Tillamook. They bought it. That was the first acre.
Twenty-three years later, we hold 12,400 acres across two states. The model is the same: find willing sellers, write a clean offer, close fast, and place the land under an easement before the next planting season. The mission is the same: forest is a commons, and someone has to hold it.
2003
Founded with a 30-acre clearcut near Tillamook.
2008
First conservation easement template adopted by ODF co-counsel.
2014
Crossed 1,000 acres. Hired first full-time restoration lead.
2019
Wilson River Reach acquired — our largest parcel at 1,240 acres.
2022
Tribal fire council partnerships begin. First prescribed burns.
2025
12,400 acres under perpetual conservation across OR & WA.
Approach
The three things we will not do.
Every nonprofit has things it does. We are clearer about the things we don't.
01
We will not sell.
Every parcel we acquire is placed under a conservation easement before our first planting season. The easement is recorded with the county and survives every owner — including us, including any successor.
02
We will not log.
We do small-scale fuels reduction in coordination with tribal fire councils. We do not commercially log. We do not partner with timber operators. The land is not a balance sheet.
03
We will not overstate.
We publish field-verified numbers. When we plant ten thousand trees, we say ten thousand. When survival hits 87%, we say 87%, even when the contract foresters are claiming 95% on the next ridge.
Leadership
The senior team.
Six leads, fourteen field staff, eight directors. Most of us have been on this for at least ten years.
Marisol Quintero
Executive Director
Founded Canopy in 2003 after eleven years in BLM forest management. Leads land strategy, board development, and the long argument with timber REITs.
Jamal Ferreira
Director of Land Acquisition
Twenty-two years in conservation real estate. Has closed 41 of our 47 parcels. Speaks the language of retiring timber families and won't outbid them by more than necessary.
Maren Holstad
Restoration Lead, Coast Range
Leads field crews on the Oregon coast. Trained at OSU's College of Forestry, came to Canopy in 2014 from a contract planting outfit she grew tired of.
Dr. Lila Tanaka
Fire Ecologist
PhD in fire-adapted forest systems. Coordinates prescribed burn agreements with the four tribal fire councils we work with across both states.
Theo Asher
General Counsel
Drafts our conservation easements. Co-counsel with WA & OR DNR. Wrote the model easement template adopted by the Coast Range Land Trust Coalition.
Lupe Carrasco
Director of Education
Built the field school and the fellowship from scratch. Eight years teaching at Lewis & Clark before that. Believes the next generation isn't a slogan.
Financials · Fiscal Year 2025
Where the money goes.
84¢ of every dollar we raise lands on the ground — in acquisitions, in seedlings, in the eighteen-month fellowship. The rest keeps the lights on and the easements drafted.
84%
Programs
Acquisition, planting, stewardship, education
11%
Operations
Staff, office, legal, monitoring tools
5%
Fundraising
Outreach, events, donor stewardship
Allocation, visualized