Clear-cuts, herbicides: a reminder of our fragile forests

A clear-cut on Washington Department of Natural Resources land above the Little River trail near Port Angeles and Olympic National Park gets an herbicide treatment.

The beautiful Little River trail

Living in Port Angeles, I have my favorite go-to trails that don’t involve much driving. The Little River Trail is one of these. Just a few miles out of town, it starts on Washington Department of Natural Resources (DNR) land for a mile then enters Olympic National Park. That first mile is a reminder of the fragile state our Olympic Peninsula forests.

At the start, the trail dips steeply down to the always burbling Little River, a cool and shady gully amongst towering firs and ferns. But a quarter mile in, you get to a new logging road. Look to the left and you’ll see the new desert created by a DNR clear-cut and, if you’ve hiked here recently, you’ll also see the danger signs of herbicide applications. Logging companies use herbicides to kill undergrowth and make future logging of their monoculture forests easier. All this is happening just uphill from the idyllic Little River.

Once you get past the clearcut, and dip back into the forest and onto Olympic National Park land, I think the land feels calm again. I feel better, washed back into the shade and green with bigger trees and a fern filled trail. The river burbling is calming.

How quickly we destroy what helps the planet breathe. More clear-cuts are planned throughout the Peninsula, despite Washington state’s pledges of saving older “legacy” forests. To see these clear-cut plans, and, most importantly, get ideas on how to save our fragile forests, check out the latest posts from the Center for Responsible Forestry.