Understanding the value of well-managed forests

MOST of the time when you read about logging and forestry, especially in urban newspapers, the focus is on controversy.

That's a shame. In reality, forestry is one of the greatest success stories in the Northwest. The industry has been a vital part of our state for more than 150 years. It continues to sustain the values we hold dear — our heritage, environmental benefits and jobs that sustain our rural economies — while producing products that everyone uses in their daily lives. But this good news rarely makes even the back pages, and never the headlines.

If we were smart, we'd realize that wood is an amazing material. It's renewable, sustainable, stores carbon in trees and wood products and provides homes for wildlife. Forestry is truly a preferred land use. Managed forestlands that are harvested and replanted at 40- or 50-year intervals continuously provide clean water, wildlife habitat, recreational opportunities and numerous other benefits at no cost to the public.

Our Northwest forest practices are based on a farming model, in which two to three trees are planted to replace every one that is harvested. This model focuses on sustainability. In other areas around the globe — such as Brazil and Indonesia, which have the highest loss of natural forests in the world — forests are simply extracted or converted to other land uses and not replanted.

Environmentally, there is no better building product than wood because it is natural and renewable. Most people are unaware of all the energy, mostly from burning fossil fuels, that goes into creating other building products such as steel, aluminum and concrete.

Our forests act like trillions of solar panels, pulling carbon-based air pollution out of the atmosphere and storing it through photosynthesis in the trunk of the tree. The carbon stays in the wood, even after the timber is harvested.

So using wood for our homes and furniture is the most environmentally sensitive choice we can make. Washington is the first state in the country to have forestry acknowledged in climate-change legislation for wood's ability to store carbon and the other environmental benefits forests provide.

A majority of our legislators understand the value of well managed forests. Under the Forests & Fish law, administered by our state Department of Natural Resources, we have the best forest-management regulations in the nation and indeed the world. Our current forest-practice rules are the product of broad, bipartisan support by the Legislature with the support of two Democratic governors — Gary Locke and Christine Gregoire. A public body, called the Forest Practices Board, oversees development of forest practices. By any account, we've seen tremendous progress in the past eight years, under direction of Lands Commissioner Doug Sutherland.

As part of the Forests and Fish law, more than 1,570 miles of stream habitat on private forestland has been opened for salmon and other fish. The new law has resulted in the largest-scale improvement for fish in our state's history by removing blockages, replacing culverts and fixing roads. This newly opened, natural spawning ground and habitat will help improve our fish runs.

Forestry in Washington is about our heritage, but also about our future. When foresters plant trees, it is truly an act of faith that in another 50 years, the next generation will be able to enjoy and benefit from that forest.

With this state growing by an additional 1.5 million people over the next 10-15 years, there will continue to be some forestland conversion. A healthy timber economy, careful management and strong forest-practices laws will make sure that our forests continue to provide clean water and wildlife habitat, both urban and rural jobs, products essential to our everyday lives and to help slow the conversion of forestland to developed land.

Next time you read about forestry, try to remember all the benefits that a working forest provides. Also remember how lucky we are to live in a region with some of the best growing ground for trees in the world, with among the toughest environmental laws in the nation and the blessing we have in being able to say we are from the Evergreen State.