AFT's Don Stuart with Governor Christine Gregoire

Washington State passed an AFT supported bill that will result in new ecosystem services markets for farm and forest landowners while also potentially improving the performance of existing environmental mitigation and restoration programs.

After passing unanimously through both houses and retaining its funding despite a tight budget, SB 6805 was signed into law by Governor Gregoire on March 25th, 2008.  It will contract a study of private farm and forest-based conservation markets and then support a pilot project to prove their feasibility. Ecosystem services markets issues addressed by the feasibility study will include:

• Identification and evaluation of successful models from other communities
• Determination of potential interest by farm and forest landowners in participating as environmental service suppliers
• Assessing the services farm and forest suppliers could potentially produce
• Identifying opportunities for using a farm and forest ecoystems services market to contribute to agricultural viability
• Forecasting potential demand and market activity for farm and forest ecosystem services
• Consulting with regulatory agencies (federal, state, local, tribal) to determine willingness to help and potentially undertake any needed regulatory changes

AFT led the introduction and a broad coalition in support for the conservation markets bill. The bill’s prime sponsor (Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen) and her House colleague (Rep. Kelli Linville) were deeply interested and very influential in getting it passed. The bill also drew an extraordinary farm-environmental coalition that came out to enthusiastically support it, including: the Farm Bureau, Dairy Federation, Cattlemen’s Association, Forest Protection Association, and Grange on the agriculture side, and the Nature Conservancy, Washington Environmental Council, Cascade Land Conservancy, and Audubon Washington, on the environmental side.

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Contact Us
Pacific Northwest Office
Don Stuart, Pacific Northwest States Director
3211 Beacon Ave. S. #26
Seattle, WA  98144
(p) (206) 860-4222
dstuart@farmland.org