Forest Restoration is crucial to the survival of our ecosystem here in Western Washington. That ecology revolves around an intricate balance between water and soil. The original symbol for the land at EEC Forest Stewardship incorporates our salmon bearing stream, bridge, and plant life; from sprouts to the spiral of life, these symbols combine to tell the story of regenerative design. Stewardship grows ever outward, coaxed along by cultivation, both on the landscape and in self. This restoration happens slowly, over time, with many setbacks along the way. In over ten years of following this vision, a plan of restorative regeneration stretches young branches towards the sky.
The EEC Forest Stewardship emblem is an insect, a smaller creature of the landscape, which is often overlooked, and underappreciated. Insects are a great biological indicator of health in an ecosystem. They remind us of how seemingly insignificant parts are critical to maintaining balance in a complicated form. In an ecosystem, taking time to see the minute details provides a strong foundation for future growth of living systems. The length of observation never ends, entropy endures, and our hill farm will change significantly in the next decade. The 2024 Critical Drought Warning was announced in April-Springtime, when we should have a few inches of rain in a week and get less than one. Still in observing for a decade, we planned thus, and have continued to establish drought resistance across the landscape here at EEC. Through community effort, personal determination, and lots of love, a small patch of cultivation happens collectively, ensuring the cooperation between all parts of the whole.
CONTACT- escocrain@gmail.com
Bridging that landscape through collective learning is this forest land’s calling. Led by the visions of Elizabeth Esco Crain, the forest at EEC Forest Stewardship is returning, one acre at a time. Through continued holistic practice and community learning, more trees will be planted, and more backyard forests will appear. From fruit trees to evergreen giants, all canopy is helping to reforest a landscape that should have intact canopy, to ensure the retention of rain waters on the landscape and nutrients in the soil. Too much land has been cleared, and we’re loosing our soil and water.
Liz grew up in Oklahoma, a place our conservation districts originated from after The Dust Bowel. My ancestry tore up the land for monoculture farming, and caused one of the largest man made ecological collapses ever recorded. Her awareness of the natural world and it’s deep impact on human survival led her to study sociology in her undergraduate career, hoping to bridge humanist philosophy with naturalist sciences in an effort to make communities aware of our finite planet and local effects on natural structures that provide our basic needs and survival as a species.
Temperate rainforest is a key ecological structure, which can still make a positive impact on global nature restoration. Without a move towards protecting and enhancing our natural environment, and living within its finite system, the human species is going to join 99% of all life on earth in the extinction category. Restoration is crucial to our survival. Every small step we can take to help restore the natural world, helps sustain and enhance the ecology we need to live. I’ve had the privilege of acquiring some local land here in Western Washington, in expectation that this bioregion will be more resilient to climate change, and allow me to survive through my own lifetime, with an abundance of fresh, clean drinking water, and enough clean air and soil to live my life, and hopefully, mentor the next few on their way as out species survives the next great extinction event in this dynamic world.
Small land owners* are not always aware of how their own acreage plays a role in the now scattered patchwork of forests left around development, which continually degrade with each passing day. Our county has a Forest Stewardship program to help land owners learn about forest management and how to develop landscape for the future, weather it be timber management with logging and replanting, or cultivating young trees that will one day stand as old growth. The great news is, more and more people are choosing to let the forests grow once again.
That’s where EEC Forest Stewardship comes in. This land is being cultivated for long term regenerative growth, with a special focus on food and medicine production, including a selection of new plantings within the landscape of this property. Pictured above is a small, but thrilling snapshot in early March, 2025, of protected restoration space where two naturally seeding evergreen trees, a western hemlock and red cedar, have begun to germinate into the first wild trees seen on the land in over fifty years. Where there were once fields with only marginal pasture, we’re establishing nut trees and under story shrubs to return layers of canopy to temperate rain-forest. An orange flagged slide alder is also pictured in the infant forest above. Through this long term restoration, EEC Forest Stewardship hopes to encourage other land stewards to embrace restoration of our home ecosystems, which supports all life on earth.
*EEC recognizes that Indigenous People speaking Southern Lushootseed were the original inhabitants of the now colonized Puget Lowlands. “Owners” implies United States of America government “deeds”, which perpetuate colonial assimilation. George Washington, for whom our state is named, was an original supporter of this concept and slave owner. This land is willed to The Snoqualmie Tribe. Leafhopper Farm LLC operates as restoration landscape with food sovereignty focused adaptation and affordable housing until transfer to our local First Nations.
EEC Forest Stewardship 