Driving west on the logging road that winds up Blanchard Mountain is a study in contrasts. To the south is an old clear-cut with sweeping views of patchwork Skagit farmland stretching to Samish Bay. The other side of the road is a steep green forest. A grouse takes off, landing in the remains of an old snag.
"When you’re making a long-term decision about a place like this," said Bellingham author and conservationist Ken Wilcox, "you have to do it right."
The decision by the Washington State Department of Natural Resources in August 2007 to renew logging on two-thirds of Blanchard Mountain was a tipping point in a political firestorm brewing for more than 15 years. Those who support the decision call it a successful collaboration of environmentalists and timber; a balance of ‘working’ timberland and protected forest. To the opposition, however, the plan is a sell-out and a death knell for a rare and endangered living landscape.
"This forest is one of a kind," said Ann Eissinger, a wildlife biologist and environmental consultant who has studied Blanchard Mountain for more than 15 years. "It’s a remnant of what historically persisted throughout this whole region, and it’s the last of it along the mainland coast of Puget Sound."
On Sept. 12, the North Cascades Conservation Council and the Chuckanut Conservancy filed a civil lawsuit in King County Superior Court against the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to halt the Blanchard logging plan they say is irresponsible and proceeding illegally.
The unanimously approved plan was the product of a year of meetings between conservation organizations and the timber industry. The lawsuit, therefore, raises a question. Even if conservation and timber can find common ground, collaboration’s biggest challenge is its most basic choice: Who’s on the guest list?
"The lawsuit is an appeal by the public," Eissinger said. "It’s the only recourse the public has to be seated at the table on this decision."
Blanchard’s 4,827-acre forest has been cut before, with logging on its lower slopes as recently as 2004. Yet, near the crest of the mountain is a swath of maturing forest that hasn’t seen an axe since the early 1900s, along with rare pockets of old growth. This forest core is at the center of the controversy.
For the state, which owns the land, there was never a question about logging the mountain. It’s located entirely within Skagit County, and the DNR has managed it since the 1950s with the sole purpose of using timber revenues to help fund Skagit County schools and other services.
Blanchard’s location, deep forests and stunning views have made the mountain a jewel for hikers, paragliders and all who value a wild refuge amid an alarming disappearance of coastal Washington’s forest and farmland. Blanchard Mountain shelters 19 threatened species. It also filters the waters of Oyster Creek and smaller streams, some of which are salmon spawning grounds. It is the last known coastal nesting area for the threatened marbled murrelet in the Puget Sound region.
Spurred by growing controversy, the Department of Natural Resources created the Blanchard Forest Strategies Group (BSG) in the spring of 2006, and asked them to find a solution that would set aside some forest for preservation and the rest for timberland. More than a year later the BSG’s plan was officially adopted: a 1,600-acre protected forest core, including a narrow linkage to Larrabee State Park and the remaining 3,227 acres slated for rotating harvest.
With three of the 10 strategies group’s seats held by representatives of conservation organizations and another by a recreation group, the plan was presented as a fair compromise.
"They all stood in each other’s shoes and tried to see it from the other side," said DNR spokeswoman Jane Chavey. "Everybody in the strategies group was invested in the long-term."?
With representation from the conservation community, land use groups, Skagit County and the timber industry, the plan was able to support interests on all sides, Chavey said.
"I beg to differ," Eissinger said. "The DNR hand-picked this group of people."
Activists have been working to protect Blanchard for 15 years, she said.
"None of those people in the strategies group have a historic memory of this issue, and none of us who do were included or represented in this decision."
The lawsuit claims the DNR’s initial environmental review is seriously flawed, because it concluded an Environmental Impact Statement for Blanchard was unnecessary, according to court documents. If the case goes to trial it could buy time for conservation groups to petition for protecting the mountain, either in the form of a new Chuckanut park district or a larger and more protected forest core.
"I would love to see a bigger protected core," said Mitch Friedman, executive director of Conservation Northwest and member of the strategies group. "But this lawsuit’s gonna go down in flames."
Friedman is intervening in the lawsuit on behalf of the DNR. He has a long history as a radical environmentalist and vocal opponent of the timber industry. During the mid-1980s he headed the Washington State chapter of Earth First!, staging tree-sits, dismantling logging equipment and blockading roads to protect old growth forest. His participation in the BSG and continued defense of the logging plan has infuriated opposing conservation groups who are holding out for a more protected mountain.
The areas slated for logging include approximately 10 percent of Blanchard’s old growth trees, and one-third of the currently roadless area. The plan allows the DNR to log selectively within the protected core and to build any temporary roads needed to conduct the thinning, according to DNR documents. This has some conservationists questioning if a ‘protected core’ on Blanchard is an overstatement.
"I suppose there are people who would like to say I’m a lousy negotiator and I got rolled," Friedman said of his role in the strategies group. "But we did a good job."
Friedman’s organization initially advocated a 2,400-acre core on Blanchard, but settled for the current 1,600 acres.
"The alternative was to go to war forever on the Blanchard core, and risk losing both conservation and good forestry," Friedman said. "If I’d held out we wouldn’t have a deal at all."
Striking a deal is a new challenge for environmentalism, as dynamics between conservationists and timber interests change. Collaborative conservation is a catch phrase for a growing trend based on finding common ground solutions between these historically clashing agendas.
"It’s part of the alliances that environmentalists are building," said John Tuxill, professor of conservation biology at Fairhaven College. "Certainly in timber, certainly ranching. You’re starting to see it with the fisheries as well. These groups are discovering that they do have something in common."
So far, collaboration hasn’t worked for Blanchard, Wilcox said. A member of the North Cascades Conservation Council and the Chuckanut Conservancy, Wilcox is helping lead the lawsuit. He said Conservation Northwest’s participation in the BSG is a miserable failure for conservation.
Over the course of history, the environmental movement progressed by fighting for a vision and allowing the political process to enact change, Wilcox said.
"It doesn’t mean you can’t compromise, but you keep the vision intact," he said.
In contrast, collaborative conservationists attempt to hammer out a compromise with land managers before going to legislature. It can be risky for conservation, Wilcox said.
"It means ultimately that they’re not fighting for conservation but fighting for compromise," he said.
Representing the public isn’t just a matter of having strong ideas and being informed, Friedman said. It involves strategy. Working with timber may mean deciding which forests are most critical for environmentalists to protect in the long run and which don’t make the grade, he said.
"We’re trying to maintain goodwill with the timber industry and the DNR for these larger objectives," Friedman said.
A major factor driving the new alliance between conservation and logging is land conversion. Development, not logging, is now one of the biggest threats facing open land in the Pacific Northwest. According to a recent study published by the University of Washington, the state is losing a piece of forest the size of a football field to development every six minutes.
For environmentalists, working with timber, rather than against it is critical for keeping protected forest and timberland out of the hands of developers, Friedman said.
"[Environmentalism’s] greatest gains in the West right now are through collaboration," he said. "But our opportunities are constantly shifting. Ten years ago we didn’t have the chance for collaboration, and 10 years ahead the opportunities might be gone."
Parts of the Chuckanut mountains are prime real estate. Some land parcels adjacent to Blanchard are owned by private timber harvesters. If Blanchard was protected, they may decide to sell out to developers, Chavey said.
"Everything can’t be a park in this world," Chavey said.
Although the additional land the DNR intends to purchase under the strategies proposal should be safe from conversion, Wilcox said he’s not convinced that private land surrounding the sites won’t be subject to the same development pressures that are in effect now.
"There is no doubt that development has the potential to be more destructive long-term," Tuxill said. In the big picture of forestry, the most important thing is that management decisions are grounded in science, but turning forest into timberland isn’t a blanket solution.
"For species such as the spotted owl and marbled murrelet, logging has been devastating," Tuxill said.
For now, it seems the next chapter in Blanchard Mountain’s history will be written in a courtroom. For the future of collaborative conservation, the biggest challenge might be in defining just how collaborative it is.
"You could try to get everyone in the room and not get anything done," Friedman said of the strategies group. "You’re constrained by the size of the table."