Upthegrove-led forest preservation motion approved by Council

October 3, 2023

The King County Council on Tuesday approved a motion aimed at preserving mature forests throughout King County.

These rare, naturally generated and structurally complex forests are in their prime for trapping carbon from the atmosphere and providing habitat for a variety of plants and animals, including threatened and endangered species.

“There is a growing recognition that older, mature growth forests play an incredibly important role in storing and preserving carbon and greenhouse gases associated with climate change,” said King County Council Chair Dave Upthegrove, sponsor of the legislation. “King County has clear climate goals, and its forests provide benefits to human health, salmon habitat, and water quality and quantity.”

The legislation asks the county executive to identify and analyze mature forests in King County to wholistically account for the economic and climate impacts of these forests. The information compiled in the report will help King County prioritize forest parcels for preservation and explore funding opportunities to acquire mature forest lands not currently within county ownership.

Mature forests are forests that were logged in the first half of the twentieth century or earlier, that naturally regenerated rather than being replanted, and that retain biological, structural, functional, or genetic legacies of natural and old-growth forests. They are on their way to becoming old-growth habitats, which embody the species diversity, genetic richness, and intricate structural complexity of their natural predecessors.

The significant historical logging impact on Western Washington’s old-growth forests necessitates the preservation of the remaining, unprotected mature forests for safeguarding the essential biological, genetic, and ecological heritage that once characterized the Pacific Northwest’s forests, as well as retaining all the benefits mature forests provide. About 14,800 acres of the 811,000 acres of forest land in King County are considered mature forests, which due to their carbon capture potential and their risk of loss due to wildfire, insects, and disease rank them among the highest priority for protection in the county.