Forests matter, especially when it comes to combating climate change. Sustainable management sequesters and stores carbon, reduces the risks of carbon-emitting wildfires and provides carbon-storing building materials for our economy.
In addition, our state-managed trust lands support family-wage green jobs and provide funding for essential public services, such as K-12 school construction.
Whatever actions we take, our climate policies should be effective, measurable and transparent — standards notably ignored in the Washington Department of Natural Resources’ recent decision to set aside more state trust lands as carbon reserves while selling carbon offsets that allow industrial polluters to keep polluting.
Our state constitution and state and federal laws require that state trust lands serve as working forests to provide wood products and generate revenue for public services while supporting forest health, clean water and recreation, as detailed explicitly in RCW 43.30.215.
But over the years, the acreage of state trust lands available for management has been halved by land set-asides for species conservation and other uses.
Before deciding to place even more of these working forests off-limits to provide carbon reserves, DNR should have done its due diligence to determine whether this policy will actually work and how it would affect beneficiaries and communities in my district and across the state.
Instead, DNR adopted this fundamental change of course in state policy without honoring traditional safeguards such as thorough analyses, public hearings and oversight by the state Legislature or Board of Natural Resources.
While in the past DNR has acknowledged that the sale, exchange or purchase of trust lands must be approved by the Board of Natural Resources, in this case the agency has notably declined to commit to honoring the board’s oversight. At best, DNR has offered only vague promises of “engagement” to some undefined and uncertain degree.
This lack of transparency renders the public and its elected representatives unable to evaluate DNR’s claims that carbon reserves will not harm state trust land beneficiaries and their ability to deliver public services.
There are no public records or analyses explaining how leasing state trust lands for carbon offsets complies with DNR’s fiduciary obligation to current and future generations of beneficiaries. Perhaps it does. Perhaps it does not. Without any public record, we cannot know.
We also don’t know how DNR developed its policy, the terms of the agreement with the private company leasing the lands, or what this will cost Washington taxpayers.
As the trustee of state trust lands, the Legislature is obligated to provide oversight and accountability. As the governing body that guides how DNR manages our state’s trust lands and resources, the Board of Natural Resources must be involved to ensure a transparent process to address potential conflicts of interest, maintain the integrity of the trust and provide for open, competitive sales and leasing practices.
Will setting aside unmanaged carbon reserves on state trust lands result in reduced carbon emissions? The findings and recommendations of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggest that, on the contrary, managing forests and using wood products delivers greater climate benefits over the long term because carbon is sequestered in both forests and wood products.
The intergovernmental panel’s findings in 2018 could not have been more clear: “In the long term, a sustainable forest-management strategy aimed at maintaining or increasing forest carbon stocks, while producing an annual sustained yield of timber, fiber or energy from the forest, will generate the largest sustained mitigation benefit.”
Did DNR adequately analyze the impact of unintended consequences from its proposed carbon lease? Reducing the responsible timber harvest in Washington state will decrease our state’s capacity to produce wood products, leading to an increase in carbon-emitting imports from places that do not sustainably manage their forests, or the substitution of concrete and steel, both of which are significant contributors to carbon emissions.
Until these troubling questions are answered, the state should not proceed with a carbon reserve policy that may be neither effective, measurable nor transparent while undermining well-established practices that combat climate change and support rural communities.
The opinions expressed in reader comments are those of the author only and do not reflect the opinions of The Seattle Times.