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Land Use and Conservation
"We have always had reluctance to see a tract of land which is empty
of men as anything but a void. The 'waste howling wilderness' of Deuteronomy is typical. The Oxford
Dictionary defines wilderness as wild or uncultivated land which is occupied 'only' by wild animals.
Places not used by us are 'wastes'. Areas not occupied by us are 'desolate.'Could the desolation be
in the soul of man?"
~John A. Livingston, in Borden Spears, ed.,
Wilderness Canada, 1970
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Protecting Blanchard Mountain
http://www.conservationnw.org/oldgrowth/statelands/blanchard-mountain
Blanchard Mountain is the only place along the coast where the Cascades connect
to salt water. It is the ultimate of green belts: a beloved and well-used place for recreation, respite,
and wildness that separates two increasingly populated counties, Skagit and Whatcom.
. . .
Blanchard Mountain is one of many valuable state trust lands, public forests managed by the state
Department of Natural Resources. While many of us think of trust lands as benefiting schools, they
were established for a number of different beneficiaries, among them the counties. Any revenues from
Blanchard Mountain logging, over and above management costs, goes to Skagit County.
Several years ago Randy Walcott, chair of the Mount Baker Group of the Sierra Club, took up the cause
of protecting Blanchard Mountain. In December 1998, he formally petitioned the Department of Natural
Resources (DNR) requesting that Blanchard Mountain be declared a Natural Resource Conservation Area
(NRCA); the agency denied the petition.
In 2001 Conservation Northwest joined Randy and others in their effort to preserve Blanchard Mountain.
Our goal is twofold: to both protect Blanchard in perpetuity, and to lead a way for better management of
other valuable state trust lands. Blanchard is worth most to the citizens of this state as a functioning,
mature forest. But how would we get there?
To break the stalemate, in 2006, the DNR convened a group of diverse interests, including Conservation
Northwest and Friends of Blanchard Mountain, and charged them with creating a forest management planf
or Blanchard's forests. It was an excellent opportunity for the Board of Natural Resources and DNR staff
to work with citizens towards a proactive solution to protect this remarkable mountain and its unique
public values.
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