The state Department of Natural Resources has released a plan aimed at ensuring the health of forests in western Washington.
The “Western Washington Forest Health Strategic Plan,” is the state agency’s first comprehensive plan focused on the region. It is intended as a high-level roadmap and a central starting place for action and conversation among stakeholders, who include tribes, conservation agencies, small and large forest owners, commercial forest product companies and the public.
The plan also is intended to guide the development of policy and of budget prioritization, DNR communications manager Will Rubin said.
The plan builds on the recently completed “20-Year Forest Health Strategic Plan: Eastern Washington.”
“The 20-year plan was, in a lot of ways, a reactionary plan,” Rubin said. “This one is a lot more about getting out ahead of some of these things.”
About 20 pages of the plan are devoted to outlining emerging forest health issues, wildfire and socioeconomic considerations relating to forest management in western Washington.
The section on emerging forest health issues opens on droughts, which, though more rare and less severe in western Washington than in central and eastern Washington, may increase as regional climate changes proceed.
Drought plays into the strength, resistance and resilience forests possess when facing other potential risk categories, such as insects — native and invasive, disease and pathogens, Rubin said.
“When you have longer droughts, and those drought conditions persist or return year over year, it has a cumulative effect,” Rubin said. “Trees become weaker and more susceptible.”
To view the DNR’s 2024 annual report on forest health highlights, visit tinyurl.com/5anst543. The 2025 report will be released in the spring.
A section devoted to wildfire risk and mitigation addresses differences in western Washington fire behavior, preparedness and initial attack, community mitigation and long-term prevention strategies.
“Western Washington is not at significantly higher risk of wildfire on a year-to-year basis right now, but it’s important to start having those conversations about how we manage our forests with an eye toward 20, 30, 50 years from now,” Rubin said.
The next 30-plus pages are devoted to a set of five goals: Increasing the health and resilience of forests and watersheds, maintaining working forests, supporting and expanding natural resource economies, increasing understanding of wildfire and investment in mitigation and supporting health assessments, monitoring, research and adaptive management. Each of the goals contain a list of sub-goals.
The plan would seek to increase forest and watershed health and resilience by increasing the pace and scale of stewardship programs, implementing a National Forest Road strategy, investing in reforestation, increasing partnerships and investments in addressing invasive species and reducing the barriers for planning, and implementing and monitoring riparian forest health, among other things.
Maintaining working forests to prevent land conversion is critical because, once forests are developed, trees are not coming back, Rubin said.
The plan notes that Washington has lost more than a million acres of forestland to non-forest uses since the 1970s with 394,000 acres converted between 2007 and 2019.
In an effort to retain working forestland, DNR will continue to support the placement of conservation easements when possible, according to the plan.
The agency also strives to offer technical and financial support to small forest owners, Rubin said. Maintaining a healthy forest can be expensive, time and energy consuming, he added.
“A lot of small forest landowners are part of an aging demographic, and at a certain point, it becomes more difficult to manage 20, 50, 100 acres of forest,” Rubin said.
Forest owners can learn about financial support for wildfire mitigation and resillience work at tinyurl.com/4amhd66e.
Forest owners often are surprised that the scope of work needed for meaningful risk mitigation on their properties can be smaller than expected.
“Sometimes it’s as simple as creating a little bit of defensible space (from wildfire), and it doesn’t necessarily have to be an entire refresh of your whole property,” Rubin said.
Small forest owners can connect to resources by using DNR’s Find Your Forester Portal at tinyurl.com/2rn8hmyd.
Jefferson County homeowners can sign up for one-on-one wildfire mitigation assessments for free through the Wildfire Ready Neighbors program at tinyurl.com/mttrup2t. DNR has partnered with East Jefferson Fire Rescue to complete the assessments.
Workforce housing needs for forestry professionals has been observed consistently, so DNR is exploring how it can develop housing on public lands near infrastructure such as roads, utilities and existing community services. The agency also is exploring working relationships with housing authorities from local governments, tribes and nonprofits, the plan said.
The actualization of certain elements will be limited by how the Legislature handles state budget shortfalls, Rubin said.
“How the Legislature decides to handle their budget challenges is going to have an impact on how some of these plans are implemented — the pace and the scale of the work,” Rubin said.
To view the full plan, go to tinyurl.com/48fdbtzv.
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Reporter Elijah Sussman can be reached by email at elijah.sussman@peninsuladailynews.com.
