7,500 Donors Paid a Logger to Save the Elwha Rainforest

A patch of the Elwha rainforest on Washington's Olympic Peninsula was supposed to be logged. Instead, more than 7,400 donors bought it out from under the chainsaws.

The Elwha Legacy Forests Coalition, a volunteer grassroots group, raised enough money to pay Webster Logging to walk away from 29 acres of the Elwha rainforest in the state's "Doc Holliday" timber sale. It is the latest in a series of agreements that, according to My Edmonds News, mark the first deals of their kind in Washington between a timber sale purchaser and a nonprofit.

A timber sale with one bidder

In 2024, the Washington Department of Natural Resources auctioned logging rights to 74 acres of state forestland west of Port Angeles, in the Twin Rivers watershed along the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Only one bidder showed up: Webster Logging, which signed a contract worth just over $600,000.

What the state put up for sale was no ordinary second-growth stand. The coalition describes the forest as a complex, naturally regenerated legacy forest with large-diameter trees, standing snags, and heavy dead wood on the forest floor. The state's own paperwork classified one unit as "Higher Quality" habitat for the marbled murrelet, an endangered seabird that nests in old coastal forests. The coalition's GoFundMe campaign page says the Elwha rainforest holds culturally important Western red cedar groves and some of the last mature lowland Sitka spruce forests on the entire Olympic Peninsula, with individual trees measuring more than five feet across. Tribal citizens have gathered traditional foods and medicines there for generations.

The first agreement came in May. The coalition raised $32,000 in four days to buy out the logging contract on the first 2 acres of Elwha rainforest, around Sadie Creek Campground, in what the coalition says was a first-of-its-kind deal in the state.

Every $20,000 raised saves another acre

Logging started on parts of the sale in June. By August, the coalition had raised $260,000 to save 13 acres of Unit 5, the largest single piece of Elwha rainforest left standing there. Webster Logging's owner, Bruce Webster, then gave the group more time to raise money for the remaining 14 acres, Units 4 and 6, at a rate of $20,000 an acre.

By mid-September, the goal was met. The coalition's own site announced the milestone with a celebration post: the remaining acres of Elwha rainforest in Unit 5, and all of Units 4 and 6, are saved.

In total, more than 7,400 donations brought fundraising to $563,000. A $75,000 gift from the Holdfast Collective, the nonprofit arm of Patagonia, and a $72,000 donation from an anonymous donor pushed the campaign over the finish line. A donor named Casey matched the Holdfast gift, according to the coalition. The money covers the timber value, the logging costs, and the fees the Department of Natural Resources charges purchasers.

"As long as I get paid what I would've made, I have no problem working with them," Webster told the Washington State Standard, as reported by My Edmonds News.

What comes next for the forest

Elizabeth Dunne, an attorney with the Earth Law Center who negotiated the contracts for the coalition, called the protected Elwha rainforest an "ecological sanctuary." She said the campaign proved people want these forests standing. "Everyone is made whole," she added. "Why would we be losing these incredibly valuable forests ... when we have alternatives and a demonstrated interest by the public in protecting them?"

The agreements are not the last word. The Department of Natural Resources is not a party to the contracts, and the agency could in theory offer the forest in a future timber sale. Public Lands Commissioner Dave Upthegrove called the first 2-acre deal "uncharted territory." Since taking office, he has set aside 77,000 acres of state forestland for conservation, and his agency has a work group developing policies for conservation leases that would work something like the coalition's deal, but with the agency at the table.

The campaign lands amid a run of tree conservation stories this year, from the new baobab species identified in Madagascar to Europe's first ash pangenome and new research on how trees sense and straighten their own stems.

For now, the coalition is moving on. Its next targets include more of the Elwha rainforest: the forests of Striped Peak near the Salt Creek Recreation Area and areas in the Elwha watershed, where it wants to create formal conservation areas. Unit 5 of Doc Holliday is still being clearcut, a loss the coalition notes itself. The parts of the forest it could save are still standing.