The Dabob Bay Natural Area Conservation project purchased and permanently protected approximately 17.6 acres of coastal and marine riparian forest and approximately 600 feet of shoreline along the western shore of the DNR Dabob Bay Natural Area. The property purchased was transferred to DNR for long-term management as part of a larger effort to protect the high habitat and functional value of the DNR Dabob Bay Natural Area. In 2009, the Commissioner of Public Lands approved the expanded 6,287-acre Dabob Bay Natural Area boundary, which is designed to protect the most important lands supporting shoreline and upland ecological processes that maintain the diverse estuarine and nearshore habitats of Dabob Bay. The project: 1) acquired parcels that were under the most risk of conversion to incompatible uses; 2) protected intact ecological processes, habitat and species; and 3) advanced landscape scale protection and connectivity by acquiring parcels that will ensure connectivity among ecosystems (marine, nearshore, riparian, freshwater, forest). This project advances PSNERP conservation objectives and contributes to the landscape-scale protection of one of the most intact estuarine and nearshore ecosystems in Puget Sound.