It's easy to forget that before Jerry Franklin, the Northwest's old-growth forests were thought of primarily as thousands upon thousands of really, really big trees.

Through the 1970s and 1980s, Franklin, a University of Washington forest-ecology professor, became the central figure among a new breed of scientists cataloging the symbiotic relationships among creatures residing in these rich, moss-draped stands. His work later proved pivotal in changing the way these forests were managed.

Today, Franklin's work to understand the ancient Douglas-fir landscape along the flanks of the Cascade Mountains will be recognized with the 11th annual Heinz Award for the Environment, which includes a $250,000 cash gift from the Heinz Family Foundation.

Calling Franklin the "father of new forestry" and the "guru of old-growth," the organization credits the UW ecologist with encouraging sustainable ways to care for forests, such as leaving woody debris, dead snags and live trees rather than simply clear-cutting.

"While his views were met at first with skepticism and derision within the industry, his new forestry principles have since been embraced by environmentalists and timber companies alike," the foundation wrote of Franklin.

Franklin said he was "surprised, proud and humbled."

"There was really a cadre, a group of us scientists and friends and collaborators who were working in these forests — not just me," he said.

The foundation is the philanthropic organization chaired by Teresa Heinz Kerry, the wife of 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry. The award is one of five given annually in honor of her late husband, Pennsylvania Republican U.S. Sen. John Heinz, who died in a plane crash in 1991.

"This is one of the largest financial awards given for work on the environment, and he is free to use the money however he wants, for whatever he needs," said foundation spokesman Jon Newman.

Franklin started his forest research in 1959 with the U.S. Forest Service, but shifted his focus to ecosystems in the late 1960s. By the 1980s, he was urging a change in the oversight of the heavily logged forests outside his window, arguing that the way the country extracted trees was having an ecological impact. Forest managers wouldn't listen.

Then came the meltdown. In the late 1980s, environmentalists sued over the decline of spotted owls, which scientists considered an indicator of forest health. When a judge halted logging throughout much of the Northwest, Congress, and then the Clinton administration, asked Franklin to recommend new ways to manage forests.

The result was the Northwest Forest Plan, which halted logging on 80 percent of 24 million acres of Northwest federal land.

Today, Franklin is a symbol of how much things have changed.

"We'll never go back," Franklin said, noting that he and the Bush administration debate changing the forest plan — but not its fundamental principles. "We don't have the same old arguments."

Franklin said he plans to use some of the money to establish an endowment for the Andrews Experimental Forest, a Forest Service research station in Central Oregon that frequently is threatened by budget cuts.

Craig Welch: 206-464-2093 or cwelch@seattletimes.com