The forestry industry has launched a new effort to promote forests and the people who work in them. Walk in the Woods includes a detailed website, a series of videos and social media channels. Colin Moseley, chairman of Seattle’s Green Diamond Resources, was one of the leaders of the effort as chairman of the North American Forest Partnership. Members of … Read More

We’ve written a couple times about a bill in the Legislature this year that will make it easier for forest owners to help salmon, and that’s because it’s a critical piece of legislation. And now the bill is state law. Gov. Inslee signed the bill on Monday. The legislation streamlines the regulatory process for Road Maintenance and Abandonment Plans (RMAP) … Read More

One of the Washington Legislature’s finest moves last year was to allocate $5.5 million for the construction of new classrooms around the state using cross-laminated timber. The 20 classrooms for kindergarten though third grade will be built in the Sequim, Seattle, Mount Vernon, Wapato and Toppenish public school districts. Installation of the CLT began recently on one of those pilot … Read More

It was just a few weeks ago that we were talking to Jason Callahan, WFPA’s Director of Governmental Relations, about a bill moving through the Legislature that would streamline the regulatory process for Road Maintenance and Abandonment Plans (RMAP) for landowners. Now that legislation is approved by the Legislature (with unanimous votes in both the House and Senate) and is headed … Read More

We have seen growing recognition in recent years of the importance of thinning forests and active forest management. We wrote last fall about thinning projects from the Confederated Colville Tribes in Eastern Washington and the U.S. Forest Service in Southeast Washington. Now The Nature Conservancy is getting attention for an ongoing thinning project on land near Cle Elum it bought … Read More

One of the takeways from last week’s second annual Mass Timber Conference (and a smaller accompanying event, the Mass Timber Summit) in Portland was that more local manufacturers of cross-laminated timber and other mass timber products will be needed to really jumpstart the industry in the Northwest. As if on cue, just before the conference, Freres Lumber of Western Oregon … Read More

We sat down recently with Jason Callahan, WFPA’s new Director of Governmental Relations. Before joining WFPA, Jason spent nearly 16 years as Senior Counsel for the Washington House of Representatives Office of Program Research. There he served as the House’s nonpartisan senior legal counsel, providing legal analysis and advice; conducting legal and programmatic research; drafting bills, amendments, correspondences and other … Read More

We write about Vaagen Brothers Lumber a lot because the company is such an innovator in forest collaboration and in communicating what it does. Russ Vaagen, vice president of the Colville, Wash., company, wrote on his blog recently about a video in which he appeared, talking about Vaagen Brothers’ commitment to active forest management. The video is part of “Era … Read More

Great news to see a bipartisan group of federal lawmakers reintroduce legislation to increase the use of innovative wood products, particularly cross-laminated timber, in construction projects. According to the Aberdeen Daily World, the Timber Innovation Act will “accelerate the research and development of wood for use in construction projects, such as cross-laminated timber, focusing on the construction of buildings more … Read More

We are happy to report that the American Tree Farm System has given its 2017 National Outstanding Inspector of the Year award to a Washington forestry leader: Tom Westergreen. From the ATFS press release: Westergreen has a life-long passion for tree farming and ATFS. He was raised on and currently manages his family tree farm (in Whatcom County), land that … Read More