OLYMPIA--State Lands Commissioner Jennifer Belcher says her staff has crafted a timber plan that could increase logging in public forests while creating more habitat for dozens of woodland creatures

But even before the proposal's planned release Friday, a timber industry group has begun a statewide campaign to dismantle it.

Bob Dick, the state representative for the Northwest Forestry Association, says the proposal sets aside too much land for habitat. The approach, he claims, could cost schools, universities and counties-the beneficiaries of the state's forest land - millions of dollars in timber revenue.

"She is not the state environmentalist," Dick said of Belcher. "She's the state lands commissioner. Her job is to maximize income from the state's trust lands."

The timber group hired political consultant Jim Kneeland to aid in the effort. Last month, it sent a 15-minute video to the state's 296 school districts questioning the merits of the plan and suggesting school children will suffer if it's implemented.

Belcher, however, contends the industry group is using school children as a front. What's really at issue, she says, is a well-financed campaign by the timber industry to compel the state to cut trees at a pace that pays little regard to environmental protection.

Management of state forest land has long been a sensitive issue.

The state owns 2.1 million acres of forests, including some of Washington's last ancient woodlands. Threatened birds nest in these vast forests. Fragile streams snake through them.

But these same forests produce millions of dollars in badly needed timber revenue for school construction and other public works. Last year, $186 million from timber sales went into a variety of public coffers.

In an effort to balance the seemingly conflicting goals of environmental protection and timber revenue, Belcher's staff has drafted what is called in the industry a habitat conservation plan.

Ambitious and far-reaching, the plan would stagger logging in 1.6 million acres of the state's forests, provide wide buffers for streams and protect some of the state's last ancient woodlands as habitat for the threatened spotted owl and marbled murrelet.

But Belcher says the state gets a big return: relief from one of the most restrictive environmental laws on the books, the Endangered Species Act.

Under the act, a landowner can be prosecuted if he or she kills a threatened or endangered animal. Under a habitat conservation plan, the landowner devises a way to protect a threatened animal's habitat; in exchange, he or she can no longer be prosecuted for an incidental "take."

As a result, says Belcher, the plan would enable the state to generate even more money from public forests.

According to state officials, timber harvests could climb to an average of 776 million board feet during the first 10 years of the plan--up from a low of 300 million board feet shortly after the spotted owl was listed as threatened. That means the state's land would produce about $20 million more than it could without such a plan--or about $221 million a year, state officials say.

Originally appeared in The Everett Herald, Tuesday, February 27, 1996.

War on the Woods