In April of 2021, Washington State Lands Commissioner Hilary Franz announced that the DNR was setting aside 10,000 acres of state forest land in Western Washington for "sequestration and storage" and to "protect some of our most ecologically and culturally valuable forests, while generating millions of dollars in revenue for the schools, colleges, and critical local services that state trust lands support."  In October, 2022, DNR released a list of 50 candidate sites the agency is considering for inclusion in the project. 

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The Good:

Candidate sites chosen by DNR include an estimated 4,000 acres of currently unprotected, lowland legacy forests.  Some of these forests are well over a century old, and exhibit old growth characteristics.  At least seven timber sales that were planned in these legacy forests have been either delayed or cancelled, including Oracle, Bessie, Critter, Echosystem, Quiver, Upper Rutzatz, and Silent Hill.  Local community advocacy was critical to getting these forests included on the list.

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The Bad:

An independent analysis reveals that a majority of forests chosen by DNR for inclusion in the project have been clearcut and re-planted within the past 60 years.  It is misleading to characterize these plantation forests as being among the "most ecologically or culturally valuable forests" in Western Washington.  The site selection process has been opaque, and sites were chosen by DNR staff with little to no public involvement.  DNR purportedly used FSC High Conservation Value (HCV) criteria to identify candidate sites.  However, most of the younger forests that were selected for inclusion are not structurally or biologically diverse, and are much more vulnerable to wildfire than older, naturally regenerated forests.  DNR needs to be more forthcoming about how the criteria were applied, and why the selected sites were chosen over other more biologically diverse, and carbon dense forests.

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