PORT ANGELES – There’s been a long history on the Olympic Peninsula of commercial loggers and conservation groups at odds with one another, but a program called the Olympic Forest Collaborative, now in it’s fourth year, is being hailed as a win/win on both sides.

A string of successful projects that have loggers and conservationists working together in the Olympic National Forest has led to increased timber harvests while at the same time providing aquatic restoration of salmon streams and rivers.

Matt Comisky is the Manager of the American Forest Resource Council in Washington, representing the logging and sawmill industries.

Logging companies are now focusing on thinning forests as opposed to clear-cutting, and conservationists help plan how and where that will optimize the health of the forest and its waterways. Dense forests are thinned, letting light into the understory and increasing the growth rate of the trees left in place. This in turn attracts all kinds of wildlife species into the area.

Jill Silver represents the conservation side of the equation. She’s part of the Collaborative representing the Olympic Forest Coalition and manages the non-profit 10,000 Years Institute.

The Collaborative is currently working on two new Stewardship projects for 2019. Queets Corner will treat about 50 acres within the Queets River watershed in Jefferson County. The Humptulips project will thin about 70 acres within the Humptulips River watershed in Grays Harbor County.

A series of public meetings is planned for this Spring where the Collaborative and the Olympic National Forest will highlight their accomplishments, discuss upcoming plans and ask for ideas and feedback on new projects.

The first meeting is next Tuesday, March 26 at the Olympic Natural Resources Center in Forks.

The next one will be on April 15 at the Rotary Log Pavilion in Aberdeen, and the third will be here in Port Angeles on May 28 at Peninsula College in Lecture Hall J47.

Each meeting will run from 6:30 to 8:00 PM.