Yakima Herald: Community forests help communities flourish

Jay McLaughlin, executive director of Mt. Adams Resource Stewards (MARS), spends a lot of time thinking about all the things that a forest can do.

“How do we maximize all the roles of a forest? What should that look like?” McLaughlin asks. “We feel that we can make an argument for sustained yield forestry, for longer harvest rotations. We also want to harvest timber in ways that allow us to explore the other values and considerations that forest management influences: ecology, wildfire risk reduction, hydrology, wildlife, recreation, culture.”

Washington state now has the opportunity to manage forests for more than just board feet of lumber. Last year, in a lawsuit filed by Washington Conservation Action, Conservation Northwest, Olympic Forest Coalition and eight individuals, the state Supreme Court ruled that the Department of Natural Resources is not required to prioritize timber harvest on state lands. Because of this decision, state foresters can also consider other benefits of forests such as the cultural importance for Native peoples or as habitat for endangered species like salmon.

MARS has been managing its forestlands with this mindset for more than a decade.