From March 20-22 2025, for the Spring Equinox, International Day of Forests and World Water Day, the Elwha Legacy Forests coalition helped organize and host a series of events to celebrate and connect the dots between the health of our forests, the health of our waters and the health of our ecosystem. We hosted two Indigenous Cinema Climate Showcase film events, a Water Blessing Ceremony, and two community hikes in existing or former WA DNR timber sales.

We were joined and supported by the First Nations Club at Peninsula College, Earth Law Center, S’Klallam and Lummi Tribal Citizens, the Orcas and Tree from Toki TV and many others.

On Saturday, 11/16/2024, approximately 40 of us gathered together and held a Native & Medicinal Plant Walk & Ceremony at the “Tree Well” Timber Sale with Tashena Francis and other Lower Elwha Klallam tribal members, Lummi Elder Freddie Lane, and Lenni-Lenape & Anishinaabe tribal member Waabishiki Binesi (White Eagle), Charles W. Creed. 

We started with an introduction/welcome to all who gathered at the Little River Trail parking lot. Then Freddie and Tashena led a beautiful traditional water ceremony at the Little River. Finally, we traveled the short distance to one of the “Tree Well” timber sale units and observed the intact, naturally regrown forest that is planned for clear-cut logging, on the hillside above Little River.

Unless stopped, the “Tree Well” timber sale would log approx. 200 acres of older forest, 50 of those next to Little River and in the Elwha River watershed. The Little River is a major tributary of the Elwha River, which we’ve spent hundreds of millions of dollars rehabilitating after tearing down 2 dams. The Elwha is the only water source for the city of Port Angeles and a major source of salmon for the Southern Resident Orcas. Logging “Tree Well” will affect the water flow during peak rain and also during the dry season. The “Tree Well” forest is naturally regrown (not a monocrop tree plantation), which if left alone will be our future old growth. We should not be clear-cutting these forests with the climate and biodiversity crisis!

Tell the DNR to stop logging mature forests in the Elwha River Watershed!