Soon after Lisa Kemmerer moved to a remote neighborhood near Ocean Shores, Washington, she began to notice something strange.
Kemmerer said she walked a ton, all over her new community. And on those strolls, she started seeing cedar trees stripped bare, missing branches. Mutilated trees, as she described them.
“ It just alarmed me. I'm like, ‘What is going on here?’” she said. “ Unless you're walking, you're not going to notice it. So no one else was seeing it.”
It took her more than a week to figure out who to call. She eventually reached out to Washington’s Department of Natural Resources.
“ They knew it was a crime, knew it was a problem and also knew it was very hard to solve,” Kemmerer said. “At that point, I started taking down vehicle license plates and trying to inform neighbors.”
It basically became a neighborhood watch, she said.
Cedar bough and bark theft can lead to closures of state property. It harms the trees.
It also hurts traditional cultural carvers, like Vincent Feliciano Jr. He’s a member of the Lummi Nation.
Since time immemorial, members of the Lummi Nation have had a deep connection with cedar trees, he said.
“From birth to death. We were born onto cedar mats in cedar houses. And we would be put in a cedar box or a cedar canoe,” Feliciano said. “It was our transportation, it was our paddles, it was our longhouse.”
That’s one reason it’s hard to see cedar trees destroyed by greed or vandalism, he said.
Feliciano has painted and carved cedar art for years. He grew up watching his family members make cedar art. Feliciano’s uncle, Dale James, was a master carver. So was his uncle, Jewell James, or Praying Wolf, who has art all over the country, Feliciano said.
“ The first time I carved, I went off to Cherry Point, where one of our traditional village sites was, and just sang a song,” Feliciano said. “I just picked up a piece of wood. I tied it on the back of my bike, rode home and carved it later.”
As tradition dictates, he gave that first carving away, often to an elder. Feliciano said he thinks his brother-in-law still has that carving. “But I bet he doesn’t know where it is,” he said, laughing.
Feliciano said he’s worked to develop his own style of carving.
“The artwork speaks to the spirit behind the animals, and the connection of people and place and our natural environment connected to all creatures and walks of life. From birds that fly, to animals that walk and crawl, to the fish like the salmon. From the air, land and water, we are all connected, one affecting the other,” he said.
When he goes looking for a piece of cedar to carve, Feliciano said he sometimes travels to more inaccessible areas, walking on his ancestral grounds. Most often, he said, cedar in the wild is so hard to come by that he has to buy cedar to carve.
“ I've always felt comfortable in the woods more than in society,” he said. “ But I've seen people overharvesting. There are traditional practices where you don't pull bark in certain places.”
You shouldn’t take bark where it’s visible. You shouldn’t take too much, maybe only a handwidth, he said. And harvests should only happen at certain times of the year. Before you even take anything, you have to ask permission of the tree and give thanks, Feliciano said, like offering up some tobacco.
Seeing dramatically overharvested trees or trees covered in spray paint and surrounded by garbage is hard, he said. Trees often don’t survive if too much is taken, he said.
“ Especially because most of our cedars don't exist in the Northwest like they used to. Cottonwood naturally took over. That’s just the way it grows,” Feliciano said.
Mismanaged resources is one factor that makes it hard to survive on art work alone, he said. Lummi cedar artists are disappearing. Feliciano said he knows of a handful of people who carve cedar now.
The cultural importance of these trees is a big reason why enforcement officers with the Washington State Department of Natural Resources hope to protect cedar on state land.
The state works with tribes to be sure they can collect cedar, said Ryan Rodruck, a communications manager for the Department of Natural Resources.
“ This type of vandalism is something that’s increasing,” Rodruck said.
If you encounter illegal harvesting, Rodruck said not to approach people directly. Instead, he said, to contact the department’s law enforcement officers.
Illegally collecting cedar could be considered traditional theft or destruction of state forest lands, according to Mike Faulk, a spokesperson with the state attorney general’s office.
Timber theft could be punishable with 364 days and jail and up to a $5,000 fine for misdemeanors. Felony offenses could include up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $20,000. Illegal harvest of a specialized forest product could be punishable by up to 364 days in jail and a $5,000 fine. That means people shouldn’t “sell or attempt to harvest, possess or transport” cedar boughs.
However, Faulk said the state hasn’t charged any cases of bark theft.
With the knowledge of illegal activities nearby, Kemmerer said she felt unsafe walking in the nearby woods.
The crimes could pay dividends for some illegal operators. Many times, they end up selling cedar for use in floral arrangements. Legal harvesters obtain permits and follow rules not to harm the trees, according to the Department of Natural Resources.
“They're destroying something that's been growing a long time, and it's going to take time to replace them,” Kemmerer said.
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