DNR’s Carbon Project Public and Stakeholder Outreach
   

Phase II Parcel Selection

 
Earlier this year, Commissioner Franz announced the launch of a first-of-its-kind carbon project on state lands. She has committed to set aside 10,000 acres of high ecological and social value state lands for conservation and carbon sequestration, and to generate revenue for state trust land beneficiaries through carbon markets. 
 
At the time of the announcement, the agency had identified the first 2,500 operable acres of forests to be set aside. Since then, agency staff have been working to identify potential areas for the remaining 7,500 operable acres. Guided by the High Conservation Value (HCV) criteria, we have identified a candidate pool of parcels. We are seeking input and feedback on these potential parcels as we narrow down to the final selection.
 

How Candidate Parcels Were Selected

DNR is using High Conservation Value (HCV) criteria to guide our selection of potential parcels to include in the carbon project. The HCV criteria were developed for, and are used by, forest certification systems to help identify areas where specific values are present in the forested landscape that merit special attention in the context of natural resource management. DNR already carefully accounts for these values in our policies and practices, but forest areas remain with some of these special features and/or with high potential to sequester and store carbon. It is on these potential areas that DNR has focused its selection of the Phase II candidate parcels for inclusion in the carbon project. 
 
The HCV criteria include:
  1. Significant concentrations of biodiversity;
  2. Significant landscape-scale ecosystems;
  3. Rare, threatened or endangered ecosystems and habitats;
  4. Basic ecosystem services in critical situations (e.g. watershed protection, erosion control);
  5. Areas or resources fundamental to meeting basic needs of Indigenous populations and local communities (e.g. subsistence); and
  6. Areas or resources critical to Indigenous populations and local communities’ traditional cultural identity.
DNR also considered other special attributes of forests, including areas of older, mature forests, Special Ecological Features (as described in the Policy for Sustainable Forests), including rare plant communities that are not already deferred, areas adjacent to other conservation areas, stands brought to our attention by concerned citizens, and more. Many of these additional considerations also overlap with the HCV criteria in some way. 
 

Where are the Candidate Parcels? 

Agency staff have identified 50 parcels totaling 11,726 operable acres as candidates for Phase ll of the Carbon Project. See maps below of the proposed parcels across the Westside, and by county.
 
Candidate parcels are included in the following counties:
  • Jefferson 
  • Clallam
  • Skagit
  • Snohomish
  • Lewis 
  • Mason
  • Whatcom
  • King 
  • Grays Harbor
  • Skamania
  • Thurston 
View county maps HERE. 
 
Phase I parcels totaled roughly 2,500 operable acres, leaving 7,500 acres to be identified from the above western Washington counties for Phase ll of the carbon project. 
 
View westside portrait map HERE.
 

What is DNR’s Stakeholder and Public Outreach and Feedback Process?

Tribes, impacted stakeholders, and the general public will have extremely varied perspectives on which parcels should be selected, and why. DNR is committed to listening to these perspectives, and selecting a range of parcels that best speaks to the preferences shared, while mitigating potential concerns. As a state agency, we have a responsibility to respect and protect Tribal rights, titles, treaties, and cultural resources, obligations to our trust beneficiaries, and a duty to Washington residents. We will carefully weigh the selection of parcels with these responsibilities in mind, recognizing that no one solution will satisfy everyone.
 

How can I get more information and give feedback? 

Stakeholders and the public have multiple options to provide feedback, including:
  • Survey
  • Public webinar
  • Open house
 
The intent of the survey is to collect data on what values are most important to stakeholders and members of the public in the context of parcel selection, and to better understand what may drive preferences to have parcels located in some places vs. others. Your answers will help to inform how we select the final parcels. 
 
The survey is now closed.
 
The webinar contains more information about these parcels and our selection process, and may be helpful to watch before completing the survey. View the recording HERE.
 
For information about the carbon project overall, and the Phase 1 parcels, click here.
 
Open house taking place on Tuesday, November 1 from 6 P.M. – 8 P.M. PDT.
 

DNR Carbon Frequently Asked Questions

How did DNR come up with the draft candidate parcels?
DNR used the High Conservation Value (HCV) criteria to guide our selection of candidate parcels for potential inclusion in the carbon project. The HCV criteria were developed for, and are used by, forest certification systems to help identify areas where specific values are present in the forested landscape that merit special attention in the context of natural resource management. The HCV criteria are not intended to represent an exhaustive list of all values present in a forest; but rather to highlight unusual or important ecological and social features. 
 
The HCV criteria include:
  1. Significant concentrations of biodiversity;
  2. Significant landscape-scale ecosystems and ecosystem mosaics;
  3. Rare, threatened or endangered ecosystems and habitats;
  4. Basic ecosystem services in critical situations (e.g. watershed protection, erosion control);
  5. Areas or resources fundamental to meeting basic needs of Indigenous populations and local communities (e.g. subsistence); and
  6. Areas or resources critical to Indigenous populations and local communities’ traditional cultural identity.
 
DNR already carefully accounts for many of these values in operations, and protects habitat, critical species, watershed health, cultural resources, and more through our existing policies and practices. Some operable forest areas nevertheless have some of these special features and/or have high potential to sequester and store carbon. It is on these potential areas that DNR has focused its selection of the Phase II candidate parcels for inclusion in the carbon project. Some of these special attributes include areas of older, mature forests, Special Ecological Features (as described in the Policy for Sustainable Forests) including rare plant communities that are not already protected, areas adjacent to other conservation areas, areas brought to our attention by concerned citizens, and more. Agency staff prioritized operable forest areas across Western Washington with these types of attributes and selected areas that had one or more of them. Staff also considered the distribution of these areas to ensure that no one region was overly impacted by the potential selection of parcels. 
 
There are forest areas on DNR trust lands with high conservation values that are not part of this list of candidate parcels. Why not?
All forests have ecological and social value, from wildlife habitat, watershed protection, or carbon sequestration, to cultural resources, supply of sustainable wood products, or areas for recreation.  Some of these values can be maintained in the context of active management, while others are better suited to passive management. In this selection process, DNR is prioritizing unique or special forest areas with characteristics that are best suited to being set aside, rather than harvested. DNR’s existing policies and practices, including our Policy for Sustainable Forests (e.g. Old Growth policy), Habitat Conservation Plan (e.g. Marbled Murrelet conservation strategy), protect other key values across the landscape. For more than 10 years, third-party auditors have verified that DNR’s forest management is environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable.
 
What happens to the parcels that are not selected?
Recognizing that all forests have ecological and social value, DNR seeks to maintain a balance of values across the landscape, including fulfilling our obligations to trust beneficiaries, while paying close attention to areas and landscape characteristics that are important to Tribal nations, and understanding community concerns. Each Tribe and beneficiary or community has a different range of values that are important to them, with some prioritizing specific cultural resources, some focusing on older trees, some valuing the jobs and livelihoods from the forestry industry, others seeking opportunities for recreation, and more. Some of these values can be maintained or enhanced in the context of active management. Through the consultation and engagement process, DNR hopes to identify areas where certain values rise to the top for the surrounding communities, and choose parcels to include or not include in the carbon project accordingly. As such, the parcels that are not selected will likely reflect places where beneficiaries, Tribes, stakeholders, or communities were clear that the values they prioritize are compatible with active management. Parcels in which this is the case will be managed according to our existing policies and practices. 
 
I know of an area that should be included in the carbon project. Will you add it to the list of candidate parcels? 
DNR recognizes that there are many areas in our forests that are special to people for different reasons. As an agency, we must take a balanced approach and manage our lands with all constituents in mind. This means that we cannot satisfy every individual with every decision, but we hope to meet the overall expectations of our beneficiaries and the public. DNR staff have chosen the candidate parcels according to the parameters we’ve set and their vast expertise in their regions, and therefore we believe we have gathered a well-rounded pool of candidate parcels. We may consider suggestions for other parcels only on a case-by-case basis, including if Tribal partners highlight areas of importance that we may have missed. 
 
What does the full engagement process include? 
DNR’s engagement plan incorporates three main components:
  • Tribal consultation; 
  • Stakeholder engagement; and
  • Public education. 
Tribal consultation will consist of a webinar specifically for Tribal representatives, a survey for Tribal feedback, and individual Government-to-Government consultation with Tribal leaders, as requested.
 
Stakeholder engagement will include targeted outreach to beneficiaries, legislators, the timber industry, environmental organizations, and environmental justice organizations. The goals of engagement will be to understand stakeholder preferences regarding location of the parcels to include in the project, the values that are most important to the various stakeholder groups, as well as concerns and hopes surrounding the project more generally. 
 
Public education will consist of a webinar (to be recorded and published as a resource), and an in-person open house, and a public engagement survey. 
 
How does the SEPA process relate to this engagement? 
The State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) is a separate process with specific guidelines for how it should be conducted. The SEPA process identifies and analyzes environmental impacts associated with governmental decisions. It is not intended to evaluate potential financial implications or other considerations associated with a proposed project. Accordingly, DNR completed an environmental checklist, with a 14-day review period, as is standard for these types of proposals. Reviewers had the chance to comment on DNR’s analysis of potential environmental impacts from our proposed carbon project. The engagement strategy described above will enable beneficiaries, Tribes, stakeholders, and the public to share their feedback on the candidate parcels for Phase ll of the parcel identification process, as well as share their thoughts about the carbon project more broadly, including financial implications. 
 
How will you consider stakeholder feedback being provided through the survey or through other means?
As DNR consults with Tribes, and engages beneficiaries, stakeholders and the broader public, agency staff will pay close attention to the ecological and social values that these various groups prioritize. DNR will use the feedback to seek a balance between these values, focusing our selection of parcels on regional preferences. For example, we know that some beneficiaries and communities would prefer to see a larger percentage of the forests around them encompassed into the carbon project, while others would prefer to keep their surrounding forests as available for timber production. DNR will seek to select parcels for inclusion in the project that maintain this mosaic of different values across the landscape, based on our knowledge of these forests, the feedback we receive, and the HCV framework.
 
How much old growth is in the candidate parcels?
DNR’s Old Growth Policy defines “old growth” as stands 5 acres and larger that are in the most structurally complex stage of stand development and originated naturally before the year 1850. Since our current policy already protects these stands, no areas of old growth considered are considered “operable” for timber harvest. Because these stands are already unavailable for timber harvest, they would not meet the criteria for “additionality.” This means that they will not sequester or store any additional carbon compared to what would have occurred as a result of our normal operations. Stands of old growth will not generate carbon credits, nor will any other areas where timber harvest is already off limits.
 
There has been public discussion in recent years about the ecological and social value of older second-growth stands, with debate around the point at which the ecological benefits of an unharvested forest outweigh the socioeconomic benefits of harvesting for sustainable wood products. There is little scientific evidence to suggest that there is a specific age at which we should no longer consider harvest as a viable option in a sustainably managed forest. DNR takes a landscape-level approach and looks holistically at the state of DNR-managed forests on the whole to help determine whether harvest of a particular stand is appropriate. DNR considers stand-specific characteristics such as age, structure, location relative to existing habitat, and special habitat features within the stand, but we also consider how well these and other characteristics are represented across our landscape. These and other considerations have guided the selection of candidate parcels for the carbon project. Accordingly, there are older forests incorporated into the candidate parcels; however, none of them would be defined as “old growth.” The average age of the candidate parcels ranges from approximately 40 years old to over 120 years old. 
 
Why are some of the candidate stands younger (e.g. 40 years) and some older (e.g. over 120 years)? 
DNR has used a variety of characteristics (including the HCV framework) to guide the selection of Phase II areas instead of drawing a line at a certain age-class. This approach allows us to prioritize areas based on a number of important criteria. Age does not always correspond to healthier forests, greater carbon storage or sequestration potential, habitat function, or other values that are important to consider when choosing parcels for the carbon project. By using a suite of values rather than a single criterion, we can be certain that the forest areas set aside through this project truly represent forests that are best suited to continue to store and sequester carbon and provide other ecosystem services as standing, passively managed forests. 
 
In addition, while older forests store immense amounts of carbon compared to younger stands, forests with younger trees can sequester carbon at faster rates. Both carbon storage and sequestration are critical in our fight against climate change, and therefore having a mix of age-classes throughout these parcels helps to ensure that we are doing all that we can to tackle this global threat. 
 
Is DNR going to do more carbon projects in the future?
DNR is exploring other opportunities to diversify revenue streams for our beneficiaries, and even create new potential revenue, by selling carbon credits. There are possibilities for other types of forest carbon projects, including avoided conversion projects which would involve acquiring forested parcels at risk of permanent conversion to non-forest land use, or reforestation projects, such as replanting post-wildfire. Other opportunities include blue carbon projects that could support our goal to restore and conserve 10,000 acres of kelp forests and eelgrass meadows, or even geologic carbon storage. Although DNR will not be expanding the current 10,000-acre project, we will continue to identify other opportunities for the agency to lean in to this up-and-coming opportunity to tackle fight climate change while providing critical revenue to local community services through our beneficiaries or additional funding for conservation through our Aquatics program.