Reasonable Forest Management - League of Women Voters of Snohomish County

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Reasonable Forest Management on Public Lands

OUR COMMITMENT

The League of Women Voters of Snohomish County supports conserving all remaining mature forests on state lands in our county. Yet Washington's Department of Natural Resources (DNR) plans to log hundreds of acres of carbon-rich, structurally complex forests and replace them with Douglas-fir plantations. We don't have to choose between protecting these forests and funding schools and essential public services. We need an economic model that recognizes the full value of standing forests—including water security, flood protection, carbon storage, and the native ecosystems they sustain. Sign up for updates and alerts by clicking the button above, and add your voice to the fight to preserve legacy forests.

LWVSC advocates for these policy changes and new funding:

Update Forest Practices Rules, Watershed Analysis procedures, and Department of Ecology environmental review guidance. Washington must bring decades of forest-hydrology research into its Forest Practices Rules, Watershed Analysis procedures, and Department of Ecology environmental review guidance. These regulations must account for the cumulative effects of forestry on flooding, summer streamflows, groundwater recharge, and watershed health. Forest management is water management. Mature forests help regulate how rainfall and snowmelt move through watersheds, influencing flooding, groundwater recharge, and summer streamflows. Extensive clearcutting, logging roads, and plantation forestry alter these processes, increasing flood risks under certain conditions and reducing summer water availability as plantations regrow. With increasingly severe storms, floods, and droughts, protecting our forests is essential to water security, public safety, and the resilience of downstream communities.

Support new sources of revenue from the Climate Commitment Act. Washington needs to transition from an extractive economy toward one that values restoration, conservation, and sustainable timber production. The Legislature can help by funding Natural Climate Solutions and the Trust Land Transfer Program through the Climate Commitment Act, protecting forests while supporting trust beneficiaries.

Give DNR authority to generate revenue from ecosystem services, including forest carbon and biodiversity. Ecological forestry can provide timber while sustaining healthier, more resilient working forests. Mature forests are also powerful allies against climate change. Scientists have demonstrated that old-growth forests continue absorbing and storing carbon, while additional research shows that mature and older forests can accumulate carbon for decades to centuries. Logging these forests reduces their carbon reserves, creating losses that can take generations to recover. We cannot afford to sacrifice this ecological capital during the critical decades ahead.

Support DNR’s wildfire capabilities. Wildfire concerns do not justify indiscriminate logging. Research documents the fire resistance of older forests under certain conditions, while Oregon State University research challenges assumptions about widespread logging on remote public lands as a strategy for protecting communities. Protecting communities requires fire-resistant homes, defensible space, and reducing hazardous vegetation near homes—not widespread logging of mature forests.

Support the Community Forest Grant Program with Climate Commitment Act revenue. Nonprofits, local governments, Tribes, businesses, local elected officials, and individuals support Community Forests that benefit a wide array of partners across our state – and we want to create more of them. Community Forests allow people living in rural areas to have a direct stake in the ownership, use, and long-term management of important forestlands, while protecting their working status in perpetuity.

Mature forests are worth more standing!

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