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Forest Policy
The Forestry Program is guided by the King County Comprehensive Plan of 2004, as amended, which establishes policies on the management of rural land and the uses that are suitable to the rural area. The Comprehensive Plan directs that strategies be developed to maintain forest cover and the practice of sustainable forestry.
Executive Order: Implementation of Forestry Policies
A directive issued March 15, 2002 ordering the Department of Natural Resources and Parks to implement forestry-related policies of the Comprehensive Plan with specific programs and activities.
Rural Economic Strategies
King County's Office of Business Relations and Economic Development introduced the Rural Economic Strategies Report in 2006. The purpose of the report is to support and maintain the character of rural King County while advancing the long term economic viability of local farming and forestry. King County ranks seventh among counties of Washington in revenue generated from timber harvest, with an approximate value of $50 million per year. King County has an interest in retaining a sustainable local source of wood products and non-timber forest products along with jobs in forest industries.
Read the latest proposals for implementing the Strategies on the new Rural Economic Development web page.
Monitoring
The Forestry program conducts a monitoring program that assesses the loss of forestland and number of forest stewardship plans filed each year. The reports from 1996 -2003 can be viewed in Acrobat PDF format with the following links:
2003 Forest Monitoring Report
2001 Forest Monitoring Report
1999 Forest Monitoring Report
1998 Forest Monitoring Report
1997 Forest Monitoring Report
1996 Baseline Forest Monitoring Report
Research
In 2003 the Forestry Program worked with a University of Washington graduate student to compile tree ordinances for every jurisdiction in King County. The summary report is available here [link to be created if we want to include this report; it is a bit out of date-LV].
The Forestry Program contracted the University of Washington College of Forest Resources in 2002 to conduct a study estimating the amount of sequestered carbon in King County forests. (Acrobat pdf format).
The Forestry program has also developed a bibliography (Acrobat pdf format) of literature on forest management at the urban fringe. It covers a variety of topics, and many of the books and articles are available from the Forestry program or at the University of Washington College of Forest Resources library. In 1999, the Forestry program worked with a graduate student at the College of Forest Resources to conduct a study about the factors affecting forestland conversion and the feasibility of cooperative land management efforts (Acrobat pdf format) at King County's urban/rural interface.
These documents are provided by the King County Forestry Program.
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