NORTH BEND, Wash. - Sometimes you have to cut the trees to save the forest.Environmentalists who fought the timber wars of the 1980s and '90s have a tough time embracing that notion. But as suburban development spreads steadily over once-rural landscapes, some tree-cutters and tree-huggers are finding common ground - or at least a common enemy: suburbia.
Some environmentalists are forging alliances with the timber industry, taking the pragmatic view that responsible forestry beats strip malls.
The conservationists' biggest victory so far has been the promise that 100,000 forested acres in the Washington Cascades foothills - most within commuting distance of Seattle - will be preserved as forest and never developed.
A coalition of veterans from both sides of the timber wars announced their plan in January. They want to sell tax-free bonds to pay for the property, then sell timber from the land to pay off the bonds. If Congress approves their unprecedented financing method, land-conservation groups across the West and around the country are poised to copy it.
Big land deals such as the Evergreen Forest Trust grab headlines and are undeniably important. But a quieter battle is being waged on small family forests. People like Lee and Louis Kahn are on the front lines. They own a 45-acre tree farm near North Bend, not far from the 100,000-acre Evergreen Forest Trust site.
Like thousands of family foresters near urban areas and interstates, they could sell out to developers for a big payday instead of relying on an uncertain, long-term crop. Yet they stick with it, even as the value of their land surpasses the value of the timber on it.
"It isn't a financial thing," explains Lee Kahn, 69, as she struggles to explain why she and her husband Louis, 79, are determined to keep working their tree farm. They live about 45 minutes from Seattle, and their property value is assessed at more than $1 million. They make about $14,000 a year selling Christmas trees. Douglas firs they planted 20 years ago won't be ready to harvest for another 20 years.
"It's a good feeling inside both of us to look and see what we've done," Louis Kahn said.
On the ridge above them, million-dollar homes are for sale. At the nearby Uplands Reserve, three- to seven-acre lots sell for $300,000 and up.
They hope their children will do the same, but it's a touchy subject.
"They know I don't want it divided. It's not a secret," Louis Kahn said.
Suburban growth, rising land values and declining timber prices have already cost Washington a lot of forested land.
According to the Department of Natural Resources, every day 100 acres of forest in western Washington is converted to commercial, residential or industrial uses. The Department of Natural Resources, which owns 2.1 million acres of forested land, has converted some of its forest land to more profitable uses - the Fred Meyer next to the Krispy Kreme in Issaquah leases land from the department, for instance. The department's goal is to preserve forest land wherever possible, said spokesman Todd Myers.
Timber land that used to be owned by big companies has been broken up and sold, repeatedly; in the western foothills of the Cascades, the land eventually gets too expensive for timber companies and developers grab it.
"When you can sell one acre in Washington state and buy 10 acres in Maine, some of the companies are doing that," said Doug McClelland, asset stewardship manager with the state Department of Natural Resources. "It's not wrong. It's just the economics of forestry."
In the past, McClelland said, leaders thought zoning was the answer. But zoning can change with a simple county council vote. The real answer, he said, is changing the economic equation. State, county and federal programs buy private land for forestry and compensate family foresters for their unused development rights.
Good intentions aren't enough - conservation takes cash. That's where the Evergreen Forest Trust folks come in, with their plan to buy the $185 million property from timber giant Weyerhaeuser and pay it off by logging 80 percent of the land. The remaining land will be set aside.
"We can have all kinds of discussions about what's the best forestry, as long as you have a forest. Once it's a shopping center or a parking lot, you don't have much to talk about anymore," said Charlie Raines, director of the Cascade Land Conservancy's Foothills Forest Conservation Program.
King County Councilman Larry Phillips said if the 100,000-acre forest isn't protected, it will be developed.
"It will be sold for subdivisions and shopping malls. That's going to happen," Philips said. "You're harvesting the forest to save it."
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