Throughout the year, NNRG’s staff have had the privilege to visit some very cool places, talk to interesting small, people, and experience the beauty and bounty of the Pacific Northwest. Our work has taken us from the Willamette Valley oak savannas to the coastal forests of the San Juan Islands, and beyond. Take a look […]

2022 is just days away, and the NNRG team is itching to get to work on some of the new projects planned for the year. But before we continue on our mission to strengthen the ecological and economic vitality of Northwest forests and communities, we’d like to take a moment to reflect on some of […]

It’s no secret that contemporary industrial timber practices fall short of realizing the potential of Pacific Northwest forests to sequester carbon. Whether it’s the allure of quick financial returns, the constraints of high discount rates, or the notion of fiduciary responsibility, most industrial owners west of the Cascades cut their evergreen forests soon after they […]

NNRG recently facilitated a unique harvest at Nisqually Community Forest, a community-owned and community-managed forest at the foothills of Mount Rainier.  The Community Forest is the site of a project that is testing the effects of thinning to different densities on a stand’s ability to adapt to the hotter, drier climate of the future. In […]

There are so many brilliant reasons to buy local. When you trade 2-day delivery for fresh-from-the-forest, you’re supporting local landowners, sustainable forestry practices, and guaranteed high-quality products. Many local forest owners make and sell non-timber forest products that would make wonderful stocking stuffers or can feed your home hearth. This holiday season, consider supporting ecological […]

We asked the NNRG staff and board — notorious for thinking about forests as much off-the-clock as on — for the best forestry, nature, PNW, and environment-related books they read this year. The result is a list as varied as it is long! Click on a title below to read about the book, or scroll […]

Conducting a timber and woody biomass inventory of a forest may sound complicated. But as a forest owner, it’s one of the first steps you’ll need to take before diving into the substantial decisions of how to steward your forest.

A forester walks into the woods carrying diameter tape, an increment borer, and a GPS… No, it’s not the opening to a joke or a riddle — it’s the start of a typical workday in the field for an NNRG foresters, who never leave home without a few important pieces of forestry gear. Several of […]

In every discussion of forest restoration or climate adaptation, someone asks the question: What about the assisted migration of trees? Should we be doing it? What are the potential impacts? It’s a big topic, and one nuanced enough that it could easily fill a hundred discussions, a dozen doctoral theses, and several books. Our recent presentation […]

Professor Jerry Franklin, far right, lectures a University of Washington class in a ponderosa pine forest in Oregon. Photo by Debbie Johnson. If you’re interested in a career involving forest management, natural resources, or environmental science the Pacific Northwest has a wonderful range of higher education programs covering those topics. In fact, several NNRG staff […]

Unless you own a forest and have had an NNRG forester out for a site visit, the details of a forester’s job might be a little murky to you. You suspect it involves wearing a cool vest, tree puns, and something called DBH tape…right?  In the interest of pulling back the curtain on the critical […]

Biochar is a form of charcoal sometimes used as a soil amendment in agriculture. But that’s really only half the story. It’s produced when organic waste material, such as forest slash, is combusted in the presence of limited oxygen. Though often described as a soil amendment, in Pacific Northwest forests it might be better thought […]

Forest stewardship can be thought of as synonymous with soil stewardship. Healthy soils sustain wildlife habitat, grow high-quality timber, improve your forest’s resilience to stressors like drought, heat, and pests, and store carbon.  So how does one become an expert in forest soils? Below we outline the fundamentals of soil stewardship and direct you to […]

Photo credit: Joe Walsh.  On Washington’s Kitsap Peninsula – that arrow-shaped piece of land between Puget Sound and the Olympic Peninsula – Great Peninsula Conservancy is working to conserve and restore degraded shorelines, peat bogs, forests, saltwater marshes, and salmon-bearing streams. The lands and waters under Great Peninsula Conservancy’s care are protected – forever. Through […]

NNRG is pleased to announce the addition of the Hoh River Recreation and Conservation Area to our FSC® Group Certificate!