Pope Resources

KUOW 94.9 FM recently aired a story -- reported by yours truly -- about a controversial land exchange in Port Ludlow on the Olympic Peninsula. 

The Washington state Department of Natural Resources wants to trade thick forests  around Port Ludlow for Pope Resources clearcuts in the Olympic foothills. 

The story spotlights the Port Ludlow exchange, which is one small part of a larger DNR strategy under fire from conservationists and citizens, as detailed by a longer Web version of the KUOW story.

The Washington state DNR manages 5.6 million acres of public property, including forests, grasslands, croplands, aquatic and commercial land.   But the agency also gets rid of public forests via land exchanges with private companies. 

The DNR's state-wide strategy pulls public ownership -- and protection --from scattered lowland forests at risk of redevelopment due to nearby urban or highway sprawl.  In return, the DNR accepts swathes of timberland higher up in the mountains;  the buffers between the land and development pressures make it easy for the DNR to create big parcels of land for future timber harvests.

While the trades reduce the DNR's management costs, they also allow older growth public forests to be rezoned and redeveloped for private profit -- at a time when school, state and county budgets are hurting.  The state's Constitution mandates that the DNR revenues produced by selling the public's natural resources -- such as timber or shellfish -- support public schools, state institutions, and county services. 

Though the DNR's land has belonged to the public since sta

In a surprising twist, Lynda V. Mapes of the Seattle Times writes that timber companies and environmentalists are now working together to save Western Washington’s forests. As urban sprawl threatens to swallow the Puget Sound region, logging has been hailed as a sustainable alternative to rising development. Once profitable timberlands are quickly depreciating in value, as developable lands draw more dollars per acre. Legislation filed in Congress last week is designed to help stem the development tide by purchasing rights to build on forested lands. Timber companies could continue to log the land for income.

"We need to hug loggers the way we do farmers,” said Mitch Friedman, executive director of Conservation Northwest, who took part in tree-sitting protests in past decades. “Given the choice between a logger and a developer, I'm going to take the logger, even if that challenges some of the notions of my old friends.”