Summer Fun: The League of Women Voters of Snohomish County sprouted a canopy at the Evergreen State Fair on Aug. 29th. Ten volunteers cheered the rain and spread the word about legacy forests to fairgoers. Kids won stickers or created forest animals at the craft table as parents heard about the last 9,000 acres of legacy forests on state lands in our county. A 120-year-old Douglas fir round told its own story of drought and flood events over time.
We had almost 200 contacts with adults and over 100 games with kids. We handed out dozens of QR codes leading to our website inviting folks to add their name to our mailing list. Many people were surprised that the WA Dept. of Natural Resources is targeting the biggest trees on state lands for auction and logging. We asked them to be ready to respond to action alerts contacting county and state offices to change this practice before their forests are lost.
Special thanks to Fred Hodge for creating the Dougals fir display and Julie Winchell and Marilyn Ridings for the children’s games.
The Ed Campaign: We are educating folks in Snohomish County through Facebook and Instagram ads. The Center for Responsible Forestry created six videos for us explaining the importance of legacy forests. The campaign was interrupted by Meta (Facebook/Instagram) on July 4th when our ad account was deactivated. On Aug. 22, we created an entirely new ad campaign and republished the educational videos. We will use the remaining grant money to run the videos throughout Snohomish County until the end of October.
In the coming months we plan to switch to advocacy with new 501(C)(4) funding and ask the community to take action on forest protection. We will help rally the public to contact our county and state governments to continue funding to preserve these forests through:
We don’t have to make a false choice between clearcut logging on state lands versus ecological forestry or perpetuate the false choice of aggressive industrial logging versus funding schools and essential county services. The scientific community has shown that there are ways to manage forests ecologically both for timber harvest and for ecological integrity.
Action Alert before Oct. 6 – Take two minutes to support the Roadless Rule.
This is our time to say loud and clear: Hands off our wildest forests.
Success in the Elwha! Trees in coastal temperate rainforest are spared from the chopping block. Thanks to those who responded to the Gofundme! in what appears to be a first-of-its-kind agreement, the Elwha Legacy Forests Coalition paid Webster Logging to halt the cutting of twenty-six acres of state-managed parcels in the Elwha watershed. “Webster Logging agreed to sign away its right to harvest some of the forests if the coalition raised enough money to cover state logging fees and replace the timber revenue it would have made.” “The coalition paid enough money to cover the timber value, logging costs and the fee that the Department of Natural Resources charges purchasers. The fee goes to the agency and
local government services.” (
The Washington State Standard.)
We welcome folks interested in working on strategy to protect legacy forests in Snohomish County. Join us for an hour at the
link on the calendar on the second Tuesdays at 10:00 A.M. Check the
calendar.