ABOUT CRF
OUR
MISSION
Mature and old growth forests in Western Washington are rapidly disappearing, as the State Department of Natural Resources (DNR) auctions them off to logging companies with virtually no oversight, public input, or media attention. These rare and unique, low elevation forest remnants located along the west coast of Washington State and across the Puget Sound Region belong to all of us and represent an important part of our natural heritage. The Center for Responsible Forestry has been working since January of 2020 to stop the senseless clearcutting of these last few remaining, older, un-planted legacy forests, and to prevent them from being converted to commercial tree plantations.
We are working to change forest management practices on state forestlands in several ways:
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By informing and educating citizens about forest management practices, DNR policies, and individual timber sales.
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By sending biologists and photographers out into the field to gather data and capture images of these forests, which we then distribute on social media.
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By participating in the forest practices application review and SEPA public comment process and attending DNR Board meetings.
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By forming alliances and organizing to oppose destructive timber sales at the grassroots level.
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By strategically challenging individual timber sales in court.
We support Conservation Northwest in their effort to challenge the legal validity of the Trust Mandate, which is based on an antiquated system dating back to the time that Washington State was founded, that strictly prioritizes generating revenue from logging over all other uses. We support an approach that balances commercial logging with promotion of forest health, diverse regional economies, and the preservation of wildlife habitat and biological legacies of the Pacific Northwest. Read the legal complaint filed by the Washington Forest Law Center here:
Conservation Northwest vs. DNR