Elders Disrupt Carrot Timber Sale
2/21/24: Update, update! As of today, the Carrot Timber Sale has been CANCELLED. While this may be a temporary victory, DNR is unlikely to have the forest re-surveyed for logging until it knows whether there will be an injunction against the sale. Advocacy, lawsuits, and DIRECT ACTION get the goods, and sooner or later they’ll realize public opinion—and climate and biodiversity—matter more than timber money!
2/20/24: For Immediate Release: Seven Elders Disrupt DNR “Carrot” Timber Sale
This morning, seven elder western WA residents delivered a letter to the Department of Natural Resources (DNR), taking responsibility for having removed all the flagging from the controversial “Carrot” timber sale in the Capitol Forest over the weekend.The seven range in age from 57 to 86, and the parcels are steep, complex, and without trails. They collected the "timber sale boundary" signs as well as the flagging, and returned these to DNR as well.
The individuals, members of a new climate-focused group called Troublemakers, say that they decided to do this because DNR continues to log older forests that are essential to the climate, and to biodiversity. DNR has failed to update its policies to respond to science from the last ten years that reveals incontrovertibly that Western Washington forests are the most carbon-absorbing in the world, and that older forests (also known as “legacy” forests) absorb far more carbon than younger ones. Legacy forests are forests that were logged once, pre-WW2, and allowed to grow back as natural forest (rather than as same-age, single-species plantations). Additionally, DNR has failed to adhere to its own rules, and is not leaving anywhere near enough older forest to meet its goal of 10-15% old growth in each Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) area (see "Board Decision on Older Forests in 2004" in this document).
Worst of all, Washington State’s climate plans do not take logging into account, though it’s one of the state’s largest sources of emissions; the legislature has even passed a bill cementing a falsity into state law, saying that logging is itself a climate solution. In fact, the wood products made from a forest that has been logged represent only about 15% of the carbon that was in the forest; the rest is emitted immediately (if burned) or over time (if left to rot). This also doesn’t take into consideration the opportunity cost of the carbon that would have been absorbed by these older trees—at the peak of their absorption—had they been allowed to grow.
The activists say we simply cannot afford to let these forests be logged.
Even among legacy forests, the Carrot sale has been particularly controversial; it’s unanimously opposed by the Thurston County Commission, and the DNR is being sued to stop the sale. However, the activists say they didn’t feel they could rely on the lawsuit; at least one other such suit against a DNR sale (the “About Time” sale) was decided in favor of the plaintiffs, but only after logging had already taken place.
“Two previous Lands Commissioners have said we need to save these forests, and a leading candidate for the next Lands Commissioner has said he’ll stop these sales….why is today's DNR cutting so much legacy forest, and putting itself in the position of failing its own goals?” asked Bill Daniell, 73, a retired physician and UW public health faculty. "It's nonsensical, and it's counterproductive to everything we need to do on climate and biodiversity."
“Business as usual is catastrophic,” added Margo Polley, 71, a retired City of Seattle employee, “As Gus Speth said over a decade ago, ‘All we have to do to leave a ruined world to children is just keep doing what we’re doing today.’ Since then, we’ve seen the beginnings of the horrors of climate catastrophe. DNR has to change its ways.”
Bobby Righi, 86, a retired community college math teacher, added simply, "Old growth forests help us feel our connection to the past, clean the air we breathe, and are a deep source of beauty. We cannot live well without them."