HB1895 – Developing a plan for the conservation, reforestation, and restoration of forests in Washington State.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Harris-Talley (D; 37th District; Rainier Valley) (Co-Sponsors Maycumber, Steele, Graham, – Rs; Leavitt, Ramos, Lekanoff, Valdez, Shewmake, Simmons, Stonier, Peterson, Berg, Kloba, Callan, Riccelli, Macri, and Duerr – Ds) (By request of the Department of Natural Resources)
Current status – Had a hearing in the Committee on Rural Development, Agriculture & Natural Resources January 18th. (Still in committee at cutoff.)
Next step would be – Dead bill
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB5633 is a companion bill in the Senate.
Summary –
The bill would require the Department of Natural Resources to create a voluntary, incentive-based working and nonworking forest conservation and reforestation plan intended to conserve at least a million acres of working forestland and reforest at least a million acres by 2040. The plan would have to respect the full diversity of landowner management and investment objectives, and utilize or develop incentive-based strategies that address preventing the loss of working and nonworking forestland across the state; opportunities to implement incentive-based carbon compensation programs for avoiding conversion and reforestation; reforestation on forestland impacted by wildfire, pests, disease, landslides, land-use change, and other stressors; and tree planting and increased canopy coverage in urban areas. prioritizing highly impacted or overburdened communities. It would have to use the plan to assess and prioritize conservation and reforestation actions each biennium.
The Department would be required to develop a framework to address the goal, mapping and prioritizing areas across the state based on criteria including risk of permanent forest loss, or the loss of critical environmental, economic, cultural, equity, or health benefits including value to local economies, carbon sequestration, landscape-level habitat connectivity, or salmon recovery and important wildlife habitat. It would evaluate and promote existing carbon compensation programs and other incentives for emissions reductions to assist forestland owners in voluntarily engaging in carbon markets. It would map and prioritize historically forested areas, including postwildfire areas and areas where reforestation or afforestation efforts might support environmental restoration, local economic development, or tribal restoration objectives, and it would conduct an analysis of the regional reforestation pipeline, including seed collection, nursery capacity, and workforce needs, to ensure an adequate basis to meet goals and growing needs. (Reforestation analyses would be required to include an ecological assessment of advantages and disadvantages of intervention, and of best strategies for maintaining and restoring ecological integrity and resilience to climate change.) It would map and prioritize urban and community areas where tree planting might provide environmental, economic, or health benefits, particularly to highly impacted or overburdened
communities. It would conduct the analysis needed to develop a strategic plan, including specific criteria to prioritize the conservation of forests at risk of conversion, and analysis of the reforestation pipeline, the state’s private sector logging and milling capacity, and equity and environmental justice impacts.
In developing the framework, the department would have to consult with impacted communities using the State’s community engagement plan and identify opportunities to increase equity in forestland ownership; utilize the Washington health disparities map to help identify highly impacted or overburdened communities lacking equitable access to forest benefits; consult with the Washington State Office of Equity on how to make values-driven, data informed decisions to identify and address disparities impacting communities of color; invite input from tribes on forested areas with important cultural, ecological, and economic values threatened by conversion or other disturbance; and engage a range of stakeholders (including a long specified list) in the development and implementation of the conservation and reforestation plan.
The Department would be required to identify, prioritize, utilize, and develop voluntary tools, financing opportunities, and incentive-based activities consistent with the plan, using appropriations provided for that specific purpose. It would have to utilize and build on various previous reports to the Legislature. It would assess and inventory existing voluntary tools, financing opportunities, and incentive-based activities relevant to the goals of the plan, and consider new ones. These might include tools such as payment for ecological services, technical or financial support to small forestland owners, tax or market incentives, conservation and working forest easements, fee simple land acquisition, or transfer of development rights. The Department would identify their limitations and make recommendations to improve, accelerate, or expand them to maximize their effectiveness. It would identify new or existing voluntary tools, financing opportunities, and incentives addressing economic stressors that contribute to forest conversion (including the retention of milling infrastructure, market access,
and workforce development); that give financial value to the underlying environmental, health, equity, and cultural values of working forestlands; and that provide support to small working forestland owners achieving their objectives and goals.
The Department would develop a pilot rapid response fund to test opportunities and barriers to acquiring private working forestlands at imminent risk of conversion from willing sellers, and maintaining them as working forests.
By December 1st 2022, the Department would report to the Office of Financial Management and the appropriate committees of the Legislature including a map and justification of identified priority areas, an approach to monitoring to assure that the forested acres were meeting the criteria of success established in the plan, and a description of activities to be undertaken consistent with it. The plan would have to be finalized and submitted to them by December 1st 2023. Each biennium after that, the Department would have to submit a report reviewing previous and future activities. This would include a list and brief summary of tools, financing opportunities, and incentives used in the preceding biennium, including total funding, costs for those, and their outcomes and effectiveness. It would highlight any of them that contributed to more equitable outcomes, including equity in forestland ownership, access to green spaces, and urban tree cover canopy. It would include any barriers to implementation, legislative or administrative recommendations to address those, and a comparison of the requested and actual funding for the plan the previous biennium, with an analysis of the additional progress that would have been expected with full funding, if that’s possible. The report would include a list and brief summary of tools and incentives to be used in the next biennium with requested appropriations, including information from the prioritization process. It would identify potential partnerships between the State and the forest products industry to promote the use of those as a way toward maintaining the state’s forestland base and reaching its emissions goals, and would identify a range of other potential partnership opportunities. The report would include criteria by which working and non-working forested areas would be considered protected from conversion, including a minimum time frame for that conclusion. It would provide an update on the acres of working and nonworking forestland by region, and on private sector logging and milling capacity, including gains or losses, and potential reasons for significant changes. It would provide an update on the quantity and quality of jobs created or sustained through conservation and reforestation activities; on the locations and acres reforested; and on consultation with highly impacted communities.