COLLABORATIVE VISION STATEMENT:

The TAPASH sustainable forest collaborative

landscape is located outside Yakima, Washington and extends from the forested flanks of the East Cascades to the arid, sage-dotted hills of the Columbia Basin. These rugged hills and canyons support some of the few remaining mature groves of ponderosa pine in the state and provide habitat for the declining white-headed woodpecker, golden eagles, Rocky Mountain elk and mountain lions. These ponderosa pine ecosystems, including forests, riparian areas and suites of dependent fauna, have changed dramatically in ecological character over the last century.

This landscape is part of the forest crisis in western states brought on by the interaction of drought, disease, altered fire regimes and forest conversion. All of these factors are exacerbated by the difficulty of coordination due to the checkerboard land ownership pattern developed in the 19th century. The magnitude of the problem at the scale of the east Cascades has driven stakeholders to agree that it is beyond any one group to work on these threats with any hope of success.