by Aspen Ford, Washington State Standard
May 12, 2026
Environmental activists have raised the $32,000 needed to spare the trees surrounding a campground on the northern end of the Olympic Peninsula from logging.
In what appears to be a first-of-its-kind agreement, the Elwha Legacy Forests Coalition paid Webster Logging to halt the cutting of a two-acre state-managed parcel around the Sadie Creek campground. Webster paid the Department of Natural Resources half of those funds, which will be divided between the agency and county beneficiaries.
“I honestly never dreamed we would raise that money so quickly,” said WendyRae Johnson, member of the coalition. “If we raised $32,000 in four days? Hello. People really said yes to it.”
Activists raised the money online with a GoFundMe campaign.
The agreement took place without approval from the Department of Natural Resources. Without an official conservation agreement involving the state, the land, theoretically, could be put up for sale again for logging.
Public Lands Commissioner Dave Upthegrove supports the idea of conservation leases and recently started an internal work group to begin developing policies, but said it was too early to take action at the Sadie Creek Campground.
“At the surface, it sounds easy: two acres, just write your check,” Upthegrove told the Standard. “But really, what we’re doing is establishing a new legal process at the agency.”
Any conservation easement that would happen in the future would need to be approved by the Board of Natural Resources, he added.
The Elwha Legacy Forests Coalition says its work isn’t done yet. The two acres that were saved comprise one of six units in the Doc Holliday timber sale.
The coalition hopes to save another larger unit, according to Elizabeth Dunne, an attorney with Earth Law Center who coordinated the Sadie Creek agreement. The 29-acre area contains so-called legacy forests — trees that aren’t quite old growth, but will be in the coming years if left standing.
Bruce Webster, the owner of the logging company, said he will log the area around July.
“The hope is that we could swap out that acreage for other acreage that would be non-legacy forest, like monocrop plantation acreage,” said Dunne.
Because the timber is worth more than $1 million, a swap is really the only viable option, she said, explaining that fundraising that amount would be unrealistic.
Over a year and a half ago, the group sent a proposal to the Department of Natural Resources to swap out the land for another parcel that’s part of a timber sale called Double Down. The agency didn’t respond.
To make a swap, the Department of Natural Resources would have to identify replacement timber and amend its existing contract with Webster Logging.
Even if that doesn’t happen and the other 29 acres are cut, the Sadie Creek Campground agreement “could be the start of something,” Johnson said.
In the future, the group hopes that the public will be able to bid on timber sales, not just loggers.
If the agency allowed the public to bid on timber sales under the same conditions as logging companies, groups like the Elwha Legacy Forests Coalition could pay 10% down on a timber sale at time of sale and then have three years to come up with the rest of the money.
“We have opportunities to manage lands in a way that reflects their value beyond timber,” said Dunne.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to clarify that the Department of Natural Resources did not respond to Elwha Legacy Forests Coalition’s proposal to swap other land for the 29 acres in the Doc Holliday timber sale. A previous version of the article said the agency had rejected the proposal.
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