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Editor’s Note: This story has been edited to clarify details and make corrections provided by Michael Kelly.
BELLINGHAM, WA (MyBellinghamNow.com) – Governor Jay Inslee recently paid a visit to our neck of the woods to, well, take a look at our woods.
The governor on Tuesday, May 14 visited a forested site near the south end of Lake Whatcom that has been preserved by the city of Bellingham, Whatcom County and the state Department of Natural Resources (DNR).
The area encompasses nearly 600 acres of forested land with the average age of the trees approximately 100 years old. Those acres are just a portion of the planned 2,000 acres of conserved forested lands across five counties in western Washington according to DNR’s Michael Kelly.
DNR Policy Director Csenka Favorini-Csorba said that the newly protected land belonged to DNR previous to now. She said that the land was just recently redesignated as protected. Kelly clarified that the land could have belonged to the state since the Great Depression but would not have been managed by DNR until after the department formed in 1957.
“The acquisition of working forest lands means that we’re taking forest areas that otherwise might have been at the risk of conversion,” Favorini-Csorba said. “They might have been cut and turned into houses or parking lots or developments. So, under the management of DNR, then now they will be maintained as forests now and into the future.”
That land is now protected indefinitely. According to Favorini-Csorba, those acres are just a portion of the planned 2,000 acres of sequestered forested lands in that part of Whatcom County. 9,000 acres have been redesignated so far in the county.
The land acquisition is part of the state’s Climate Commitment Act. Land acquisition and redesignation for the purposes of carbon storing and sequestration is a $70 million project from the state budget that DNR has worked on in the last few years. So far, Favorini-Csorba said they have spent $50 million of those allotted funds.
Favorini-Csorba told My Bellingham Now the term “legacy forest” is not a well-defined term. She adds essentially that though it has not standard meaning or scientific definition, it has been coined by some to refer to forests similar to the recently redesignated parcel.