Environment In wildfire-prone Washington, 'collaboration' on forest management gives way to timber interests

Throughout her two decades working on forestry issues, Jasmine Minbashian has often found herself at odds with the U.S. Forest Service and the timber industry. Her environmental activism started during the second wave of Pacific Northwest “Timber Wars” — an intense period of conflict between environmentalists and the timber industry that unfolded in the late 1980s and ’90s over logging in old-growth forests.

Instead of camping out in century-old trees or destroying timber-felling equipment in protest of sweeping logging practices on public lands, Minbashian took a different approach. She worked to bring disparate groups together to restore old-growth forests, supporting rural economies and reducing wildfire risk at the same time.

So when she joined the North Central Washington Forest Health Collaborative in 2019, Minbashian felt cautiously optimistic. The organization — one of dozens of forest collaboratives that had sprung up across the West — brought together conservation groups, agency officials and timber companies to plan forest restoration projects in the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest. As the executive director of the small environmental nonprofit Methow Valley Citizens Council, she was excited to have a seat at the table to find common ground.

One of the group’s first major efforts focused on restoring 50,000 fire-prone acres near Twisp, the rural town where she lived. For years, the group collaborated closely with the U.S. Forest Service to design the Mission Restoration Project and garner community support. The plan included some commercial logging, but largely focused on thinning small trees, restoring habitat and decommissioning old roads — work Minbashian believed could protect communities without resorting to the kind of aggressive logging she had spent years fighting.

https://washingtonstatestandard.com/2025/08/02/in-wildfire-prone-washington-collaboration-on-forest-management-gives-way-to-timber-interests/