Collaboration works wonders

Conservation Northwest is a member of the Pinchot Partnership. Founded originally as the Gifford Pinchot Collaborative Working Group, the Partnership shares a vision of creating restoration projects in national forest second-growth plantations. And they've been successful. These projects are designed to employ local contractors while retaining all old growth on the landscape and keeping forests healthy, diverse, and wildlife friendly.

In 2004 the Partnership redesigned a restoration thinning timber sale called Smooth Juniper that today serves as a model for other forests in the region. The novel project includes adaptive management and embraces key principles that restore ecological function to overgrown second-growth forest on the Gifford Pinchot National Forest south of Mount Rainier, while avoiding logging in older forests and roadless areas and practicing restoration. Smooth Juniper sold in 2005. Logging in the project is ongoing, supplying enough work for a logging crew to operate full-time for two years.

Read more about the ongoing work of the Pinchot Partnership.