by
Northwest Natural Resource Group
Tom Kollasch has a great job.
As manager of Willapa Programs for The Nature Conservancy (TNC), he's one of the people that gets to run all over the Conservancy's Ellsworth Creek Preserve, one of the jewels of Southwest Washington. The 8000 acres of forest includes old growth cedar and spruce, marbled murrelet habitat, bear, elk and coho and chum runs, to name a few highlights.
This summer TNC made the decision to join Northwest Certified Forestry, enrolling two managed forests in Washington. They include the Ellsworth property, as well as a 640 acre section of forest in the Tieton watershed northwest of Yakima.
TNC has an internal mandate to certify timber producing forests they own to FSC standards, a process normally done through their own organization-wide group certificate. Membership in Northwest Certified Forestry is a pilot project that represents a new, potentially more leveraged direction.
Fran Price, TNC's Director of Certification Programs, says "With NNRG we saw good value and the opportunity for a strong partnership. When it comes to things like efficient certification, market development, and regional relationships, we recognize that outsourcing has the potential to bring us more net benefit, both internally and for our broader conservation mission."
TNC has also emerged as one of the leading supporters of FSC worldwide and has made substantial investments in demand-building programs, particularly consumer education.
"From our national and international work, it's clear that making certification successful for small landowners is the key to fulfilling demand, especially in the U.S. We're using this partnership with NNRG as a test to see how our involvement can help small landowner groups scale up and how their local knowledge can help us" says Jack Hurd, TNC's Director of Forest & Trade Policy.
Tom and his staff at Ellsworth will be going through certification this fall, and are preparing for commercial thinnings next year. "Our main goal here is to accelerate the development of old growth characteristics, but we're also excited to connect the work we're doing all the way through the market to buyers that want to support it. Certification is a great way to make that happen."Northwest Natural Resource Group
