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OLD-GROWTH AND LEGACY FORESTS

Old-growth and legacy forests—the old-growth of tomorrow—play a crucial role in combating climate change by acting as significant carbon sinks, absorbing carbon dioxide and storing more carbon per unit area than young trees. In this map of western Washington (WA), old-growth includes areas that are more than 175 years old. Legacy forests include trees that were cut in the 1800s and 1900s, and are now 80 to 175 years old. They are not protected like old-growth in federal parks.

The Seattle Times published this map and my illustration of evergreen photosynthesis in the A1 story, “Forest Feud,” on Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024.

“Forest Feud” is a Topical Reporting: Climate Change winner in the 2025 Online Journalism Awards.

Map of old-growth, legacy, and younger forests, and land managed by Washington's Department of Natural Resources. Most of the old-growth is concentrated in protected federal parks.

Process

Early conversations with the reporter and editor focused on how to fairly represent competing interests—the timber industry, conservation advocates, and the species that rely on mature forests.

To create the map, I partnered with Washington’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to obtain and validate GIS layers showing forest age classes. Because the original dataset contained hundreds of thousands of points, I simplified the geometry to reduce file size and improve performance. I then finished the visual design and formatting in Adobe Illustrator.

DNR provided forest age classes in ArcGIS Pro.
Original data from WA DNR

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