Effort to Bring Together North Cascades Conservation and Timber Interests Highlighted

The Planet Magazine highlighted efforts by the Darrington Collaborative to bring together conservation, timber and local community leaders from the scenic town of Darrington to support forest restoration and local economic benefits.

Photo Courtesy of Tom O’Keefe

As a member of the Darrington Collaborative, Washington Wild is working with a diverse group of stakeholders, including rural community leaders and timber interests, to find common ground around pursuing forest restoration thinning in previously logged stands. Restoration thinning helps create a more diverse and healthier forest with the potential for future old-growth characteristics. Ultimately, the purpose of the Collaborative is to show that we can simultaneously create a more ecologically resilient forest, provide for increased and  sustainable timber harvests on national forest lands, and create economic benefits to rural communities like Darrington within the context of the Northwest Forest Plan.

The Darrington Collaborative was born out of relationships built in the wake of the devastating Oso land slide in 2014. Read more about the work the collaborative has been doing and the positive impact they have had in this article for The Planet Magazine: BRANCHING OUT: Four years after the deadliest landslide in U.S. history, Darrington, Washington, is a community on the mend.