Six years ago, Congress selected Central Washington as one of 10 places nationwide to test a three-pronged program to restore ecological balance to forests, protect rural economies and reduce wildfires.
Now a newly released federal report praises the national Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Act as successful so far. It’s credited with reducing fires on nearly 1.5 million acres, harvesting millions of dollars in timber and supporting more than 4,000 jobs annually. While the program got off to a somewhat slow start locally, supporters say its collaborative strategy is paying off and interest is growing nationally.
“So often, it seems that conversations about forestry get stuck in extremes — the people who don’t want any trees cut or people who are more focused on what you take off the forest than what you leave behind,” said Chris Topik, who works with The Nature Conservancy on forest issues across the country. “I think the lesson is that by investing upfront time in community collaboration, you can get more work done and not get derailed by those outliers who are going to litigate.”
Locally, the effort known as the Tapash Collaborative so far shown modest results, but is now poised to make significant progress.
“I think the idea was to build over 10 years,” said James Schroeder, the director of the Eastern Washington Forests Program with The Nature Conservancy, a member of the collaborative group. “In the Tapash landscape, what we are seeing now is bigger projects with shorter planning and more support. I think over the next five years we’ll see even more.”
From the Yakima Herald: https://www.yakimaherald.com/home/3024671-8/positive-start-for-federal-wildfire-reduction-program