Click here to leave a message with your state representative.
Let them know that you believe solving big problems means managing the forests, not turning our backs on them.
Support managed forests as a critical tool for fighting climate change and preventing catastrophic wildfire.
Activists are pushing to enlarge the extent of unmanaged forestland across the state and in your county – radical new proposals that would negatively alter forestland management in your county and across Washington state.
Doing this would harm critical efforts to fight climate change and prevent catastrophic wildfires.
Managed forests are those where the forest products industry uses practices of sustainably harvesting forest lands for wood products and to keep forests healthy, including replanting at least three trees for every one harvested, thinning of dead and dying trees, and removal of underbrush.
The facts are clear about why support for managed forests is smart policy for the problems we face:
Managed forests are healthier and less likely to burn
Studies show that managed forests are healthier and less likely to burn than unmanaged forests. Sustainable forest management practices prevent catastrophic wildfires by keeping forests healthy and removing damaged trees and excess underbrush that spread fires.
- Unmanaged forests are 2 times more vulnerable to catastrophic wildfire.
- More than 60% of forests on the Olympic Peninsula are already unmanaged, creating greater risk for catastrophic wildfire than occurs on managed forestland.
Managed forests are a greater climate benefit than unmanaged forests
Science shows that managed forests provide a greater climate benefit than unmanaged forests. In fact, Washington’s forests and wood products offset our state’s carbon footprint by 35%. This can be an important tool in fighting climate change.
- Managed forests absorb CO2 from the atmosphere nearly twice as fast as unmanaged forests.
More than half of Washington forest lands are restricted from management
Unmanaged forests allow drier conditions, disease and insects to weaken trees, contributing to catastrophic wildfires. These wildfires not only devastate our forests and cause severe air quality problems, they also contribute to climate change by releasing millions of tons of stored carbon into the atmosphere. Actively managing our forests through sustainable harvesting is an important part of fighting climate change.
- Unmanaged forests are 2 times more likely to produce dead or decaying trees which emit carbon.
- In 2015, the year of the Carlton Complex Fire, wildfires in Washington state emitted nearly 18 million metric tons CO2e–only the transportation sector emitted more.
Click here to leave a message with your state representative.
Tell them that you support managing forests to help climate change and prevent catastrophic wildfire!
Thank you.
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