Legacy Forest Ground Truthing in Whatcom County, Washington

This project involves ground truthing GIS work to add to existing GIS data for late successional forests or “legacy forest” in Western Washington. The role that legacy forests play in retaining biodiversity in our forests is discussed. Field work was done in the form of traveling to sections of legacy forest previously mapped with satellite imagery and adding polygons of new areas determined to be legacy forest. The polices for logging late successional forest on state Department of Natural Resources managed land are analyzed, as well as the projections for logging operations in legacy forests. This study concluded that much of Western Washington’s legacy forests are going to be logged in the next decade if we don’t have policy interventions.