Protecting the Pacific Northwest’s last ancient forests has been a priority for the region’s environmental movement since at least the 1980s. In the late 20th century, the lines of this major battle over natural resources seemed starkly drawn and unmovable. Activists staged tree-sits to stop logging of some of the last centuries-old trees in western Oregon and Washington, while environmental lawyers won a series of precedent-setting lawsuits on behalf of the endangered northern spotted owl. The timber industry fought back, claiming green groups were killing jobs. For decades, a legal battle raged (and continues to rage) to save the last trees that predate European colonization.

In recent years, though, the controversy over Northwest forests has taken on interesting new contours.

While saving the last truly ancient trees remains an urgent priority, at this point most actual old-growth on federal and state lands west of the Cascades is either protected, or has already fallen to chain saws. Absent the efforts of environmental groups there would be even less old-growth left, so the protection of even a fraction of the region’s original forest cover is a major victory. However, over 70% of that original forest has been lost, with the figure for lowland areas being much higher. This raises the question: how do we work toward a future where the loss of old-growth isn’t just stopped, but actually begins to be reversed?

The obvious solution is to protect forests that are not yet old-growth (defined in Western Washington as at least 160 years old), but which have the potential to reach old-growth status well within our lifetimes. Instead of being logged, these forests should be allowed to mature into true old-growth ecosystems that sequester countless tons of carbon and provide valuable habitat for spotted owls, marbled murrelets, and other endangered species.

Washington environmental groups recently coined the term “legacy forest” to describe forests that were lightly logged about a century ago, and which have regenerated into complex ecosystems that are already beginning to take on old-growth characteristics. It would seem these forests should be prime candidates for protection–but instead, the state’s Department of Natural Resources has rushed to put many of them up for logging over the last few years. That’s the subject of my most recent story published in Columbia Insight.

While writing this story, it was fascinating to hear directly from people who are deeply immersed in the controversy over legacy forests. I spoke with activists from Mason County Climate Justice, a grassroots organization fighting to save imperiled legacy forests on the southern Olympic Peninsula. I heard from a timber mill representative who says the term “legacy forest” is part of a politicized effort to move the goalpost on what lands should be protected. I talked to climate activists who have turned their attention to protecting the big, old trees that are among our best defenses against the climate crisis. And, I heard directly from folks at DNR who say that clearcutting legacy forests has no significant environmental impact (yes, that’s actually what they mean when they release a “determination of nonsignificance” for logging projects in legacy forests).

In fact, I’ve been paying attention to this issue since long before I began writing this particular article–and what’s become clear to me is that right now, DNR is effectively serving the interests of the timber industry in Washington, to a point where it’s become difficult for other voices to get through. I have no doubt the people at DNR believe they’re doing what’s best for our state, but this seems to involve putting as many older forests up for auction as quickly as they can, in an apparent effort to get the logging done before lawsuits or changes in DNR leadership can put a stop to it. As a result, we are losing ecosystems that one activist I talked to referred to as the “old-growth of the future.”

This truly is one of the most important environmental controversies raging in the Northwest right now. Want to learn more? You can read all about it in my Columbia Insight piece.