Washington’s Westside counties count on the steady stream of funds from State Forest trust lands—funds that don’t come from taxes. Each county has different services that are funded—county hospitals and clinics, libraries, school operations, fire districts, roads or ports and more. All together, since 2000, each year these trust lands have averaged $90.5 million in revenue, even with the recession, to support valuable local services.
State-owned State Forest trust lands are managed by DNR. For each county they provide hundreds of thousands—even millions—of dollars each year. They also are home to diverse fish and wildlife and also protect water quality and slope stability.
You know State Forest trust lands such as Capitol State Forest, Tiger Mountain, Yacolt Burn and Tahuya State forests, and many others. People make millions of visits to hike, bike, bird-watch, fish, hunt and ride there each year.
Jobs in these sustainable forests, and mills nearby, are a tradition in the state, and were part of the original idea when these trust lands were set up (then called Forest Board) in the 1930s in response to quickly diminishing forests. Today, they still provide jobs in rural areas and help maintain a viable natural resource-based economy. During the recent economic downturn, DNR continued to provide a steady flow of timber sales auctions. In fiscal year 2010 state trust timber provided almost one third of Washington’s timber harvests, as compared to 15 percent in 2000.
Throughout the first part of the 1900s these forests were private and had been logged, abandoned and were tax delinquent. Each county deeded the cutover lands to the state to manage. The counties get most of the funding, with a little to the state general fund, and a portion for DNR to manage the lands.
And the public and counties can be reassured that DNR’s sustainable management of forested state trust lands has earned ‘green certification’ for these well-managed forests.
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