And communities like Darrington suffered. As logging dwindled, residents left for jobs and amenities elsewhere, and businesses closed. Today, the population hovers around 1,100 people, and the median income is around $37,000 per year. The majority of people with jobs have to commute out of the area, often for more than an hour. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
As the Northwest Forest Plan gets updated this year, community-based groups like the Darrington Collaborative<\/a> are working to show how conservation can more successfully co-exist with rural communities. They hope to find new solutions for other towns surrounded by federal forest land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Darrington Collaborative formed in 2015 to modernize ecological practices<\/a> and innovate in ways that wouldn\u2019t leave anyone behind. Its ten members include representatives from timber companies and environmental groups like The Wilderness Society, as well as key civic leaders like Darrington mayor Dan Rankin. Since then, the group has launched multiple demonstration projects. Each shows how management techniques can work in practice \u2014 like restoration thinning, which involves managers helping forests become more diverse and clearing space for remaining trees to grow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When the collaboration began, Mayor Rankin said building trust took real time. \u201cWe\u2019re 25 years out of the Northwest Forest Plan, and we were called traitors,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was nasty. But we prevailed.\u201d He said the group has focused on projects that can simultaneously bring timber to market, provide jobs, and restore the forest. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The team\u2019s first step was to get to know each other and figure out commonalities. Next, they wanted to test those areas of agreement in places that weren\u2019t currently hosting critical wildlife species. The first two pilot projects, named Segelsen 1 and Segelsen 2, involved analyzing and thinning on 70-acre sections of forest. Both were full of Western hemlock and Douglas fir trees all about the same age and size that shaded out the understory. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The goal was to make a healthier forest, with some open areas, and some places where trees grew densely, similar to a natural landscape. The Segelsen 1 project was purchased by Darrington-based Hampton Lumber, while another company, Sierra Pacific Industries, bought the Segelsen 2<\/a> project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Restoration, unlike traditional logging, focuses more on what is left behind than what is taken to the mill. This kind of forest management increases biodiversity and also makes forests more resilient to fire<\/a>, said Taylor Luneau, The Wilderness Society\u2019s Western North Cascades conservation manager. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhen you\u2019ve reduced those small trees that act as ladder fuels,\u201d or vegetation that allows a fire to climb upward from the forest floor, \u201cyou can get through a fire more sustainably,\u201d Luneau said. This helps develop a diverse mix of small and large trees more similar to an old-growth forest, creating an ecosystem that supports wildlife habitat. \u201cYou\u2019ve got a win-win right there, where you\u2019re taking timber out of the forest, and you\u2019re doing it in an ecologically sound way,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hampton Lumber,<\/a> which currently employs 175 people at its Darrington mill, supported the Segelsen projects. Tim Johnson, the Washington regional manager for the company, is part of the Darrington Collaborative. \u201c[Thinning is] out of the ordinary for our company,\u201d he said. \u201cIt takes a lot more effort. It\u2019s harder to log, and it\u2019s a little bit higher cost.\u201d But if that\u2019s what they need to do to bring money into the area and get wood out of overly dense federal forests, Johnson adds, Hampton is willing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The town\u2019s government has stayed very involved. Mayor Rankin, who co-chairs the Collaborative, has been visiting the project sites each year. \u201cThe way the landscape responded was perfect,\u201d he said. \u201cIt brought the complexity of that landscape to a different level that we didn\u2019t anticipate.\u201d Sunlight now shines through to the forest floor, and shrubs and other plant life have begun to grow below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, animals like deer, bobcats, and squirrels are using these sections of forest, along with birds. \u201cYou can see where that trajectory is going,\u201d Rankin said, \u201cand it\u2019s pretty reassuring that, \u2018Hey, we did it right.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Along the way, the members of the Collaborative have found they share more common ground than they expected, said member Megan Birzell, Washington state director for The Wilderness Society. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhen conservation and timber don\u2019t talk to each other, there\u2019s a perception that loggers and rural people don\u2019t care about the environment and conservationists don\u2019t care about people,\u201d Birzell said. \u201cThat\u2019s absolutely not true. There are things we\u2019re never going to agree on, but on the 80% we do agree on, we can actually get a lot done\u2014and we build trust that allows us to increase that zone of agreement.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In March of 2014, the Oso landslide<\/a> seven miles outside town became the deadliest in U.S. history, killing 43 people. After the tragedy, Darrington found itself searching for new solutions that aimed to minimize environmental damage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The hope is that the Darrington Collaborative\u2019s efforts will lead to more wood available for local communities to support existing sawmills as well as new economic opportunities. In 2020, the city government proposed the Darrington Wood Innovation Center, to pursue a new construction technique called mass timber<\/a>. It involves nailing or gluing wood panels together to generate a strength approaching that of concrete, albeit with a much lower carbon footprint. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Federal and state governments awarded the town up to $120 million<\/a> to be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for the forest-based construction material. Its first phase involves a trial to create the material, followed by an expansion into modular construction using mass timber, and eventually maybe even a sawmill that would produce the material at scale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The project could someday provide up to 120 jobs, including not only highly-skilled positions for engineers and architects, but also entry-level positions, said Rankin. \u201cIt could make a huge difference in encouraging young people to stay in Darrington,\u201d he added. Watching high school students graduate is always exciting, he said. But \u201cit\u2019s also the saddest day, because you know the next stage of their life probably isn\u2019t going to be here.\u201d He hopes providing more jobs for young people might be part of the solution. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In the meantime, Darrington hopes to capitalize on another major economic driver: outdoor recreation. The picturesque area is a natural jumping-off point for adventurous types coming from Seattle. It\u2019s close to rivers, glaciers, waterfalls, and the mountains.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n The town sits near a daredevil mountain bike network that offers sweeping views of Mt. Baker. It\u2019s also close to a famed rock climbing area, Three O\u2019Clock Rock in the Boulder River Wilderness. And for hikers, the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest offers trailheads that lead to crowd-pleasing spots like Glacier Peak and Granite Falls. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet \u2014 mirroring national trends \u2014 teachers reported that many local kids were barely spending time outdoors. Darrington\u2019s young people weren\u2019t benefitting from these wilderness opportunities or their economic potential. So after the Oso landslide, Oak Rankin, Mayor Rankin\u2019s nephew, helped found the Glacier Peak Institute<\/a>. The institute offers 500 in-school and afterschool programs per year that expose participants to hiking, rafting, canoeing, foraging, navigation, wilderness survival, wilderness first aid, and planting trees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMultiple kids who\u2019ve gone through the program are now continuing their education in areas like fisheries management and outdoor guiding,\u201d Oak Rankin said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He says the next step is to develop more locally-owned companies, to ensure that tourism dollars stay in the community. Progress is already being made in that direction: After years of revolving-door restaurants that would close for the winter\u2014or sometimes forever\u2014Darrington now supports three consistent food establishments and a new brewery, River Time Brewing. They help give the town a sense of year-round life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n That gives everyone from Mayor Rankin to environmental leaders like Luneau hope. To be truly sustainable, \u201cwe need to consider what the needs are of the local community,\u201d Luneau said. \u201cThat\u2019s likely going to include some level of timber harvest. But it\u2019s also going to entail Darrington investing in its outdoor recreation infrastructure. There\u2019s so much that could be done, and I\u2019m really excited to see where Darrington takes things in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Wilderness Society has been working since 1935 on uniting people to protect America\u2019s wild places. With more than one million members and supporters, The Wilderness Society has led the effort to permanently protect nearly 112 million acres of wilderness in 44 states and ensure sound management of public lands. We believe that public lands can and should be a critical part of the solution to the climate crisis and a healthy future for all. We work to rapidly and fairly phase out fossil fuel development, responsibly ramp up renewable energy development, and protect and restore natural carbon sinks \u2013 like old-growth forests \u2013 on public lands and waters.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\nCollaboration is crucial<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Seeding hope<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Unlocking more from the outdoors<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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