The harvest of a 126-acre patch of timber along the Elwha River, known as the Power Plant Forest, has been canceled despite having been auctioned off to the highest bidder in July.

Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz announced on Monday that not only was the sale canceled, but 69 acres of that patch of timber are now part of the 2,000 acres of new state forestland proposed to be set aside for conservation as funded by the Climate Commitment Act.

“The community has raised significant concerns about the Elwha,” Franz told The Seattle Times in an interview. “We have a salmon crisis. That is an area where we have seen an unbelievable return of habitat. We’ve seen an unbelievable return of our salmon. … So let’s include it in this 2,000 acres, which was about ensuring that we had highly ecologically valuable forests.”

LINK (via Phys.org)