Forest protections essential for healthy ecosystem

Published 1:30 am Monday, April 6, 2026

The Washington Forest Practices Board’s decision to expand forested buffers along headwater streams is a long-needed step toward salmon recovery.

As we continue to feel the effects of climate change, forested buffers along streams without fish help cool the water downstream where there are fish, especially during dry summer months. Forested buffers along all streams improve the habitat needed by fish, wildlife, and plants throughout the watershed, including vulnerable species of fish and amphibians listed under the Endangered Species Act.

Riparian restoration is essential to recovering the salmon populations that are essential to supporting tribal treaty harvest rights, economies and culture. Long-term sustainability of forest economies also depends on healthy watersheds and resilient fish populations.

The governor-appointed Forest Practices Board is tasked with upholding the landmark Forests and Fish Law of 1999, which federal, state, tribal, and county governments developed in collaboration with private forest landowners and members of the public. Its members closely followed the science and the law when they adopted the new rule.

A key part of the rule is the flexibility to make site-specific management decisions to adjust buffer placement. The tribes are committed to supporting landowners to make these changes in a reasonable and good way, but we are not willing to sacrifice our treaty-protected rights and resources.

The Forests and Fish Law brought together former adversaries when longtime NWIFC Chairman Billy Frank Jr. worked with Stu Bledsoe, executive director of the industry trade group Washington Forest Protection Association, to create a plan to help improve water quality and reverse the decline of fish populations throughout the state, while also valuing the timber industry. They wanted to create a way to work together instead of resorting to litigation.

According to Billy: “After many months of negotiations by all of the parties involved, the result was the Timber/Fish/Wildlife Agreement—now called the Forests and Fish Law—which put an end to the war in the woods with a cooperative science-based management approach that ensures a healthy timber industry while also protecting fish and wildlife.”

That’s the same spirit we need now. Instead, the Washington Forest Protection Association decided to sue the state departments of Ecology and Natural Resources over the new buffer requirements, claiming the new rules are too expensive and unnecessary.

We can’t allow politics or greed to undermine the work we’ve done to protect the forested areas that make our state a special place to live.

The recent decision to expand forested buffers was based on more than 20 years of research and monitoring of headwater streams in Washington state. The Forest Practices Board acknowledged that timber harvesting next to streams raises water temperatures and agreed the current rules needed to be updated to keep headwater streams cool.

The science used to support this rulemaking was independently reviewed and approved by experts at the University of Washington. All the decisions that led to the new rule were based on consensus decisions. An independent cost-benefit analysis determined the likely benefits of the proposed rule outweighed the likely costs.

While some landowners expressed concern that alternative frameworks weren’t fully explored, years of scientific review and stakeholder engagement under the adaptive management program evaluated potential options and showed that stronger protections were necessary. The Forest Practices Board deliberated for years before formally adopting the proposed rule.

The treaty tribes agreed to be part of the Forest Practices Board because all parties committed to following the science and adapting the forest practices rules as necessary. The agency is based on a foundation of adaptive management that relies on the best available science.

For generations, the tribes in Western Washington have known that maintaining trees along streams is critical to providing the necessary shade to help keep streams and rivers cool. Now is not the time to go backward.

The treaty tribes look forward to working together to preserve the trust and balance of this framework that is the key to the long-term protection of Washington’s forests, waters and treaty-reserved resources.