One of the key features of Washington’s Climate Commitment Act is a Natural Climate Solutions Account, an efficient and effective way to channel funds collected from carbon polluters into agriculture and forestry projects that provide multiple benefits to rural communities, pull carbon out of the atmosphere, and make the land more resilient to climate change.

For example, legislators earmarked $70 million to protect carbon rich older forests on Department of Natural Resources Lands (DNR) and buy out timber interests by acquiring replacement lands that will be available for timber harvest in the future. Thus far, 2,000 acres of at-risk forests have been protected using this mechanism.

Conserving rather than clearcutting these forests avoids the release of greenhouse gas pollution associated with industrial logging activities, which emit most of the carbon stored in trees, some soil organic carbon, and carbon from fossil fuels burned by logging equipment, log trucks, and milling.

Early this year, I co-authored a life-cycle analysis of such emissions sources and concluded that logging and wood products emissions in Washington State would be the number two source if properly counted, a finding consistent with previous peer-reviewed assessments. Two recent court cases affirmed DNR’s duty to factor these emissions into logging decisions authorized under the state environmental policy act (SEPA).

It is a testament to the political power of the timber industry that these well-known sources of emissions continue to be excluded from the state’s official carbon inventory and ignored by DNR in its timber sale decisions.

The emissions factors found by this research (~ 16 tons of CO2 released per thousand board feet logged) imply that conserving rather than logging the 2,000 acres now protected by the CCA has avoided the release of over 1.1 million tons of CO2 pollution with an economic benefit of $214 million based on EPA’s midpoint value for the social cost of carbon.

That’s a hefty return on a $70 million investment. 

But avoiding carbon pollution is just one benefit of preserving these older stands. Our increasingly rare mature and old growth forests are helping to buffer rural communities from the worst effects of climate change by keeping the land cool during heatwaves, keeping streams and rivers flowing for salmon and drinking water, providing sites for recreation, hunting, and fishing, and reducing the severity of floods, landslides, and wildfires. 

These forests do far more work standing than they do cut down and turned into piles of discarded and decaying lumber, paper, or Amazon boxes. Using “working forests” as a euphemism for clearcuts and tree plantations misses the most important work healthy forests perform. We have many less-carbon intensive substitutes to replace our excessive consumption of wood — bamboo, hemp, carbon negative concrete and green steel, for example — but we don’t have a substitute for all the valuable work these older forests perform for Washingtonians on a daily basis. 

Combatting the climate crisis requires using all the tools in the toolbox, and protecting carbon rich forests is an absolutely essential one. While use of CCA funds to accomplish this is, for now, a sound approach, it should not be necessary. Protecting these forests should be a matter of public policy. We shouldn’t have to buy back lands we already own.

CSE’s research has shown that a modest tax on the carbon emissions from industrial logging activities on private lands would generate more than enough revenues to decouple funding for counties, schools, and fire departments from logging on DNR lands while maintaining timberlands as an attractive investment. And that is just one of many options.

Let’s hope our next Commissioner of Public Lands rejects the false narratives of Big Timber, recognizes the urgency of protecting and restoring older forests and finds ways to replace logging revenues with sustainable alternatives. 

Dr. Talberth Ph.D is president and senior economist for the Port Townsend-based Center for Sustainable Economy and co-director of the national Forest Carbon Coalition.