Public Lands Candidate Dave Upthegrove stands up for Legacy Forests
By Derek Firenze
Two of the top three funded candidates for Washington State Public Lands Commissioner are taking money from timber companies, the very people they’d be tasked with regulating. Dave Upthegrove isn’t one of them.
He is, however, the most funded candidate currently running in that race. Not only that, but he has the most grassroots funding.
“I have the most number donors of any [Public Lands] candidate,” Upthegrove told me at a recent campaign rally in Port Angeles.
Much of that support, he says, comes from the Olympic Peninsula. “I think it’s because people out here care about issues impacting forests and public lands because they’re in it out here,” Upthegrove said. He added that he feels at home amongst that local environmentalism and claimed that he has “found my people out here on the Peninsula.”
Upthegrove is currently chair of the King County Council, where he works to preserve public lands and manage growth, parks, wastewater, and transportation in environmentally sustainable ways in Washington’s most populous county. As Chair of the King County Flood Control District, he doubled funding for salmon recovery and led major reforms to better protect our region’s rivers.
Upthegrove’s love of the outdoors developed at a young age during summers in high school and college spent outdoors teaching young people about conservation on Dabob Bay and leading week-long treks through the Cascade Mountains. His interest in politics developed further as an environmental activist on campus at the University of Colorado, where he earned a degree in Environmental Conservation and Biology, later earning a graduate certificate in Energy Policy from the University of Idaho.
If elected, he would also be the first out LGBTQ statewide executive office holder in Washington's history.
Beyond that distinction, one policy sets him apart in his current race.
“I have taken a very clear position that on Day One—my first day in office—I’m going to sign a mature forest policy that ends the destruction of mature legacy forests,” Upthegrove said. “It’s a policy difference between the current commissioner,” he added.
Hilary Franz is the current commissioner heading the state’s Department of Natural Resources. Franz is giving up that position to run for Congressman Derek Kilmer’s seat, which he’s vacating.
Legacy forests are forests that have never been logged by a machine. While they don’t quite qualify under the state’s old growth status, they are still some of the most complex and biodiverse regions of the state. Protected Olympic National Park lands are surrounded by many currently unprotected legacy forests, including those surrounding vital watersheds like the Elwha River.
The Elwha River once spawned 100-pound Chinook salmon, locally known as “Elwha Hogs.” It is also home to the largest completed dam removal project in U.S. history, which aims to restore salmon habitat. The federal government has spent more than $327 million on restoration in the Elwha River Watershed after the dam removal.
Although the DNR recently protected 69 acres in the Elwha Watershed, 850 acres of legacy forest are still at high risk.
“It doesn’t make sense to essentially clear-cut a large tract of forest literally 200 feet away from where we’ve invested hundreds of millions of dollars to remove a dam for salmon recovery. We know that forestry practices have an impact in the watershed on the river,” Upthegrove said in the documentary Last Stand: Saving the Elwha River’s Legacy Forests.
Upthegrove also believes that these protections are possible without hurting our local economy.
“You can do this and still support rural economies, jobs, and public services,” he said. “I’m suggesting we use existing funding programs like natural climate solutions, like trust land transfer, to acquire replacement timberlands over time.”
His plan is simple.
“About 70% of our forestry takes place on private timberlands, and a lot of times, these large real estate investment trusts will harvest the trees and then unload the property. That’s an opportunity for DNR to use those funding programs to buy that property and replant, and keep it in forestry instead of having it convert,” Upthegrove said.
“I think scale is important too,” he added. “We’re talking about maybe 3% of the state-owned timberlands,” he noted in regard to legacy forests.
“That’s something we can manage and still have a strong, healthy economy,” Upthegrove said. “It’s meaningful, it’s important for climate storage and biodiversity, but it’s also achievable in still supporting rural economies.”
While there are currently eight people running for Public Lands Commissioner, Upthegrove believes he is uniquely suited to achieve the meaningful goals he’s set out. He’s been endorsed by Washington Conservation Action and many public officials across the state, including Port Townsend’s mayor, David Faber.
“We need a lands commissioner with strong environmental values and the relevant background and experience to get it done,” he said. “I think that’s what contrasts me with the other candidates. They don’t all have strong environmental values, or they have strong environmental values but lack the experience and background.”
“What I offer is a lifelong commitment to those strong values, a lifetime of experience on environment and natural resource issues, and a commitment to a sense of urgency around our climate and biodiversity issues,” Upthegrove said.
