Making the shift to stewardship

Shifting the Forest Service toward ecologically-sensitive forest restoration and stewardship of national forest lands is a long haul but Conservation Northwest’s gains this year show what’s possible. In 2007 we maintained strong protections for old growth while helping thin overgrown forests, decommission unused roads, and reduce flammable forest fuels near communities in the young managed forests abundant to Washington. Our work affected more than 28,000 acres around the state. And for every acre restored and project influenced, we submitted comments on many more–to enhance the health and well-being of forests, streams, and wildlife habitat.

On the Colville National Forest

Thanks to our involvement, the Forest Service continues to move away from "old-school" timber sales and toward collaboratively developed, "new-school" fuels reduction projects. The Vulcan Wildland-Urban Interface Project, which we helped shape, protects rural communities from fire by reducing woody fuels on 3,000 acres of forest along the US/Canada border near Danville, Washington, and Grand Forks, BC. At Lake Ellen, southwest of Kettle Falls, the Bangs Fuel Reduction Project will reduce fuels on 700 acres of forest land along the border of the Colville Indian Reservation. And work by the Northeast Washington Forestry Coalition, including Conservation Northwest, has this year resolved a long-standing dispute over the Trout Creek Project north of Republic, Washington. The improved project can now move forward to reduce wildfire fuels on 7,000 acres of forest around rural homes and neighborhoods in the Trout Creek watershed.

On the Wenatchee-Okanogan

This year was a big one for our work on the Wenatchee National Forest, where our input helped shape dry-forest restoration on about 12,000 acres. Projects we influenced to ecologically improve will reduce fuels on lands near homes and communities, as well as restore dry forests and wildlife habitat beyond the wildland-urban interface. Projects included Liberty Fuels Reduction, Iron Fuels Reduction, Moe Forest Restoration, and Natapoc Ridge Restoration. For road restoration, we raised $4,300 from The Mountaineers Foundation (to be matched with funding from the Forest Service) to decommission 1.25 miles of road in the Wild and Scenic Wenatchee River corridor. We also attained a resource advisory committee grant of $6,000, including one full day of volunteer hours, to restore 40 acres of floodplain along the Cooper and Cle Elum rivers.

Next year, with the groundwork underway, we expect to see ecological thinning on 1,900 acres of younger forests on Roaring Ridge and in the Little Wenatchee. Included in these stewardship projects is decommissioning of 11 miles of road in the Upper Yakima and Wenatchee watersheds.

On the Gifford-Pinchot

Our work, together with that of the Gifford Pinchot Task Force, led this year to nearly 1,300 acres of variable density, or ecological, thinning, two-thirds of which took place in younger, simple forests. The projects also incorporated 1.2 miles of road decommissioning and 2.2 miles of in-stream restoration work. Overall, we not only contributed during the public comment process but later worked directly with agency staff to improve cutting plans, reduce road impacts, and restore forests and streams. While not all of these acres can be considered restoration, the prescriptions improve these forests for fish and wildlife while helping meet the needs of the local community for jobs and wood.

We also have put many hours into a 1,500-acre plantation restoration project with the Pinchot Partnership. This project incorporates thinning in structurally simple stands coupled with aquatic restoration, including pulling bad roads, improving existing roads, and adding structural complexity to streams and streamsides where needed. Conservation Northwest’s staff forester, Derek Churchill, wrote the actual prescriptions for the thinning, and we are excited to see this model project implemented in 2008. Conservation Northwest's work also helped dramatically improve the Cowlitz Sale. In this mature forest grown back after regional turn-of-the-century wildfires, loggers will thin primarily in the structurally simple portions of stands, leaving most of the structurally complex groves to develop naturally toward old growth.

On the Olympic

On the peninsula, Conservation Northwest's participation helped ecologically enhance quite a few thinning projects this year, resulting in close to 4,000 acres of thinning projects and 5.4 miles of roads decommissioned, all in young managed stands. Conservation Northwest's staff forester, Derek Churchill, wrote the prescriptions for two demonstration thinning sales, the Pine Creek Stewardship and Dungeness Stewardship projects. Our involvement improved other projects, including the Bear Saddle Sale, and the Jackson Sale, where the Forest Service dropped plans to thin 400 acres of structurally complex, century-old, naturally regenerated forest, leaving these trees to progress naturally to old growth.

Involvement of the Olympic Forest Coalition was key to all these projects. On the Pine Creek Stewardship Project, we also worked with the Skokomish Watershed Action Team, made up of The Wilderness Society, the Skokomish Tribe, the Olympic National Forest, the Mason County Conservation, Green Diamond, American Forest Resource Council, and other agencies. Stewardship projects couple ecological thinning with aquatic protections and forest restoration, using the proceeds from thinning to fund restoration and provide jobs to loggers and wood to the mills. Over the past few years, Conservation Northwest was instrumental in bringing to fruition Olympic National Forest's first major stewardship project, Flat Stewardship. It was implemented this year.