OLYMPIA — He’s so new, the bracelet from the inaugural ball the night before was still on his wrist, and he had to check what floor his office is on as he reported for work last week — on his first day as Washington’s new commissioner of public lands.
But Dave Upthegrove knew one thing he would do right away: make good on a campaign promise by pausing for about six months on cutting unprotected, older forests on state trust land.
Valued both for biodiversity and carbon storage — and high-quality timber — these forests have been at the heart of a yearslong controversy over cutting forests that could be the old growth of tomorrow.
The pause is a major policy move, affecting 23 sales in the first half of 2025 — or nearly 30% of all sale acres proposed for the year.
“I felt a responsibility to the public to live up to my word,” Upthegrove said in an interview last week from Olympia.
During the pause, Upthegrove said he will direct his staff at the Department of Natural Resources to get a better handle on the older unprotected forests managed by the state: where they are, how much there is, and what criteria defines them.
Some forests, or portions of them, might be released for cutting before the pause is up, depending on what is learned, Upthegrove said. The pause doesn’t mean the state will cut less timber overall, but it will change where the agency harvests, and what type of trees DNR cuts, Upthegrove said.
He took a piece of paper and quickly sketched his vision with a pen. “I am not looking to grow this,” he said, scribbling about half the area of a box representing lands already permanently set aside from harvest. “But what about this,” he said, drawing blobs on the other half, that represent the older, unprotected forests that have been such a magnet for controversy.
There, “I’m suggesting that we need to look at making sure that we have a greater percentage of structurally complex, mature forests across this entire landscape, before we continue to harvest these,” Upthegrove said.
Nick Smith, with the American Forest Resource Council, an industry group, was skeptical.
“We are curious about how is that going to work, in the context of a budget crisis that the state is currently facing?” Smith said. Local communities depend on timber revenues, he noted, and purchasers and the agency itself depend on stability and predictability of sales that are developed over a long period of time.
Smith said, however, the industry isn’t “out to bloody his nose his first days in office; we want to give him a chance, we understand he made a campaign promise and he wants to honor it.”
Upthegrove’s decision to retain so many of the agency’s professional staff is reassuring, Smith said, and “we appreciate that he is accessible and willing to talk.”
Peter Goldman, founder of the Washington Forest Law Center, said he sees a chance for a fresh start and embrace of new possibilities. “I have high hopes for him,” Goldman said. Part of that hope in Upthegrove’s tenure is a DNR that will work with people and listen better, Goldman said. “People were tired of not being listened to … That arrogance made people mad and made them dig in harder.”
In addition to the pause, Upthegrove said he would have to learn what legal or policy tools (if any) are available to rewind any of the sales approved by the Board of Natural Resources before he took office — many of which opponents have litigated. But, he said, “Mostly, I want to look forward.”
Upthegrove said he sees himself as a change agent, but “I am not a bull in a china shop … The way you get change is by bringing people with you.” He’s gotten far with that approach in prior jobs, as a legislator in the state House and on the Metropolitan King County Council, where, for instance, he reoriented flood-control policy toward solutions that also help salmon.
A lifelong outdoors enthusiast, Upthegrove looked the part of the state’s top lumberjack, arriving for work in jeans and shoes suitable for a walk outside. One of the things he said he most hopes for in this job is spending time seeing the state’s lands and waters for himself, and building a legacy that makes it possible for all kids to have opportunities for outdoor recreation.
He mentioned joy a lot. And he’s already made a bit of history just by so comfortably being who he is, as Washington’s first openly gay statewide official. Being formally announced at the inaugural ball with his husband, Chad, was a sweet moment, Upthegrove said, remarkable for its sheer unremarkableness in a state where not that long ago gay couples did not have the legal right to marry.
While forestry issues dominated his campaign, he fully appreciates the job of commissioner is so much bigger, from wildfire protection to safeguarding and improving the health of Puget Sound, clean energy development and fostering policies that help both the state’s people and wildlife thrive, Upthegrove said. Orcas and king salmon depend on healthy forests that cool the waters and shelter streams, he noted.
He hopes to rebuild relationships so every timber sale doesn’t end up in court, Upthegrove said, and board meetings aren’t blown up with controversy. Even the agency’s most staunch combatants these last several years agree with that.
“The key is going to be transparency and respect and a willingness to listen and commitment to work together to solve the problems we face,” said Stephen Kropp, founder of the Legacy Forest Defense Coalition, which helped catalyze and lead the movement to save older trees on DNR lands. He hopes, Kropp added, DNR will follow its policies, and not only save legacy trees, but the connections between quality habitats — to protect true forests, not just buffer strips and isolated islands of trees here and there.
His vision, Upthegrove said, is a state with sustainable forestry and a healthy forest products industry for generations to come. That, and a “little bit of a reset,” to “a shared understanding between our industry partners who produce the wood products and those that love trees for the trees’ sake, about what is our common plan and vision.
“I would feel successful if, at the end of my term, we’re all rolling in the same direction.”
