Strategic Forest Retention

Retention of High‐Valued Forest Lands at Risk of Conversion to Non‐Forest Uses in Washington State

The 2007 Washington State Legislature directed the University of Washington College of Forest Resources and its Northwest Environmental Forum to produce recommendations “for retaining the highest valued working forest lands at risk of conversion to non-forest uses.” Since 2004, Forum dialogues have brought together over 400 participants from 94 organizations, representing the full range of interests concerned about the future of Washington’s forests. Informed by in-depth research from the College, a remarkable consensus about the nature of the threats and the steps that must be taken to conserve our state’s working forests has emerged.

The 2008 Forum defined “working forests” as “sustainably managed for commodity products as
well as ecological and social values” and requiring a “permanent and un-fragmented land base.”
The Forum made a series of major recommendations for the 2009 Legislature.

1. Fund the maintenance and enhancement of the Land Parcel Database.
   
2. Establish right to practice forestry legislation.
3. Support Washington Farm Forestry Association and Washington State Department of Natural Resources (DNR) requests to fully fund the Family Forest Fish Passage Program (FFFPP) and Forestry Riparian Easement Program (FREP) programs, for DNR requests for expert forestry assistance for small landowners, and for landowner incentives to provide benefits for threatened and endangered species.
4. Support the central Puget Sound Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) pilot project.
5. Fund the DNR forest health initiative.
6. Create a Legislative Task Force to address in detail a full complement of additional issues such as tax reform, regulatory stability, incentives and ecosystem services payments.

The description of all 2006-2008 Forum recommendations is in Appendix B.

Here's a link to read or download the entire report in PDF.

Washington State Forestland Database: Statistics Tables

Table 1. Washington State Forestland Parcel Acres by Owner Type and County

Table 2. Risk of Forest Conversion by Water Resource Inventory Area (WRIA)

Table 3. Summary of High Value Forest Lands at Risk

Table 4. Small forest landowner, Industrial and Tribal forested acres in western Washington
counties with positive conversion risk, and total forested acres

Table 5. Forested acres and annual loss rate percent by timbershed

Table 6. Currently Available Mitigation and Incentive Programs in Washington

Table 7. Other States' Incentive Programs

Table 8. Incentives Proposed or Under Consideration (from the Northwest Environmental Forum)

Strategic Forest Retention: Data Derived Maps

Statistics tables produced from the Washington State Forestland Database have been spatially represented in several maps. The maps are part of the report prepared by RTI and the Northwest Environmental Forum submitted to the Washington State Legislature and the Washington Department of Natural Resources. They are available to view or copy and save from the Maps Page.

Acknowledgements

Gordon Bradley, Ph.D.	Principal Investigator
Brian Boyle	Northwest Environmental Forum Leader
Luke Rogers	Forest Research Scientist/Data Base
Andrew Cooke	Forestry Research Consultant/GIS
Robert Rose	Research Consultant
Ellen Matheny	Report Production
Clara Burnett	Report Production
John Perez-Garcia, Ph.D.	Infrastructure Report
Sergey Rabotyagov, Ph.D.	Landowner Survey Report

This research has been funded by the Washington State Legislature, through a pass-through grant to the Washington Department of Natural Resources for the College of Forest Resources. The Northwest Environmental Forum has been supported by its participant organizations and others, who are committed to the sustainability of Washington’s forests and devising market-based incentives that materially improve the ecological outcomes from working forest management.

The Family Forest Foundation and the Washington State Farm Forestry Association advocated for funds to develop a database of family forestlands in Washington State, resulting in a 2006 federal budget allocation of $500,000 for a "private landowner database," culminating in a USDA Forest Service contract with the Rural Technology Initiative to create the Washington State Forestland Database. This project could not have been completed without their combined efforts.

We thank Matthew Donegan of Forest Capital Partners for his “Four-part Framework for Preserving Working Forests,” and allowing us to reproduce his paper in Appendix G. The image on the front page is by permission of Getty Images, John Humble, photographer.

Forum Sponsors