The Northwest Certified Forestry program has reached a tipping point over the last few months. After building program infrastructure for most of the last three years, staff began recruiting landowners in earnest last summer. Since that time membership has grown substantially, with an average of about 6 new members per month joining the program.

As of mid-April membership had grown to 69 members with over 11,000 acres, with the majority of new members coming from the South Puget Sound 'hub' managed by Kirk Hanson.

Members average 163 acres in size, but are typically much smaller, with a median of 42 acres (if you're having trouble remembering what that means, here's a definition). Their  distribution mirrors the Northwest small forest landowner profile very closely, with the great majority smaller than 100 acres.

Among this new flush of members are NCF's first in Oregon, Ocean Mountain Ranch in Port Orford and Vohs Farm Trust in Beavercreek. "Bringing our services to Oregon is an important next step for the program and for broadening the economic options for Oregon landowners " say director Ian Hanna. "We intend to open an Oregon field office within the next year and have been investing in a strong set of partners and contractors for some time."

For a full list of Northwest Certified Forestry member landowners, please see the Certified Landowners page. This list is updated quarterly.