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John,
In the last two years, legislators funded the conservation of mature forests on DNR trust lands. This kept carbon out of the air and also preserved timber jobs. We are urging legislators to continue the important investment in conserving mature forests, Washington’s greatest natural climate solution.
Help to make sure the legislators provide these funds in the next biennial budget.
The main way that lawmakers set aside money for a specific purpose is by approving a “proviso.”
In 2023 and 2024, the legislators used provisos to conserve about 2,300 acres of irreplaceable, mature forest on our public state trust lands. These provisos' funds also helped replace these lands with 5,900 acres of younger working forests to support rural communities through timber harvest. It also reduced the backlog of forestry work to make our forestlands healthier.
This money came from Climate Commitment Act's (CCA) Natural Climate Solutions account. The CCA, passed in 2021, raises money by making polluters pay for the damage they cause, and then uses those funds for climate projects around the state.
Budget provisos have funded progress to protect both forests and rural livelihoods. But there’s so much more to do:
If we conserved the thousands of acres of complex state forests that still remain unprotected, we could keep millions of metric tons of CO2 out of the atmosphere.
We could support the economies of more counties that are restricted in the forestlands they can harvest because of endangered species, adding more acres of working forests for timber harvest.
We can continue to do work to make all state forestlands healthier.
The time to conserve mature forests is now before they are harvested and disappear from state trust lands.
Thanks for speaking up!
Bryan Pelach (he/him)
State Forestlands Program Manager, Washington Conservation Action
