Save a Forest in Southworth, WA

Southworth Forest Update:

2023 Concludes With Forest Progress and Unanswered Questions

Posted December 28, 2023 by Southworth Forest

English Holly is highly invasive in the Pacific Northwest and needs carefully removed to ensure a healthy native forest. After mechanical removal, the Holly seen here is piled in meadows for shredding. (2023)

A busy year at the Southworth Forest has been capped off by extensive restoration work to remove invasive plant species, tackle increasing deer damage, protect native understory, and plant new native trees. The deforestation case involving the adjacent conversion to agriculture remains on pause with Kitsap County permitting and the courts while additional information is sought from the clear-cutters seeking to legalize their violations.

The primary project at the forest in late 2023 has been the removal of extensive groves of English Holly from a wide swath of the acreage. This evergreen bush, which can grow to the size of small tree clumps and live for hundreds of years, crowds out native trees and understory, creating dead spaces underneath them if allowed to grow large enough. Closer to wetlands, this Holly is solely mechanically removed, which is challenging given its rhizomatous, sometimes deep root systems. Elsewhere, herbicides can be applied to freshly cut stumps with drill holes for added permeation.

Deer damage in the forest has increased exponentially in 2023, with numerous young Giant Sequoia, Western Hemlock, and fir trees damaged significantly during the deer rutting season between October and December. All of these trees had been protected by individual fencing, but the deer tear it away from posts with their antlers and proceed to mangle the trees. Neighbor refusal to allow seven-foot fencing around the perimeter of the forest, including a legal claim by the adjacent clear-cutters to stop such fencing, have limited the effectiveness of the deer management.

About 50 new trees have been planted in the forest this fall, mostly Western Red Cedar and Sitka Spruce, though sunny positions are being prepared for native oak trees as well. The removal of the English Holly is pivotal to opening space for additional tree planting. The extensive windstorms of this season have blown over several massive snags (dead trees) in the forest, and a surprisingly unlucky number of young trees planted in 2020 and 2021 were entirely crushed as a result. The fallen snags are being left in place and replacement trees planted around them. Extreme rain in December has hindered these efforts.

As for the adjacent deforestation, clear-cutters Meghan and Clint Edwards have been required by Kitsap County to clarify clearing limits and other aspects of their after-the-fact conversion permit, as there is confusion about how much additional native vegetation they intend to destroy. They have not supplied answers to the County or community since the November 1st request. Legal action by Edwards has prevented the reforestation of the most vulnerable portions of the Southworth Forest as well. Once they declare their final clearing limits, the community can prepare its response to the County about inevitable impacts.

Kitsap County has taken no further action on the deforestation permit while it awaits this clarification from Edwards. Public record requests have shown that the County continues to neglect community feedback, however, failing to fully record comments during the comment period for an erroneous, ultimately withdrawn State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) determination in October. Once Edwards declares their final intentions and the County issues a subsequent environmental decision, this failure to consider existing impact evidence from the community will be used as necessary in an appeal of the permit decision.

For the winter months of 2024, the restoration work in the Southworth Forest will continue to focus on Holly removal and the planting of at least another 25 trees. Bareroot, plug, and transplant trees are also being prepared in pots for the 2024-2025 planting season. Thanks again for the dedicated community support for this project!

Deer damage to trees from this year's rutting season has been extensive. This Giant Sequoia was thrashed after deer used their antlers to tear off the protective fencing and iron post protecting it. (2023)

Each instance of deer damage in 2023 has been more impactful to the trees than usual. This formerly 6-foot-tall Douglas fir tree planted in 2020 was almost completely destroyed despite fencing protection. (2023)