Justin Urresti is the Conservation Forester for TNC’s Western Washington forests, covering the Hoh, Clearwater, and Ellsworth ecosystems.
Over the last three decades, Justin has gained diverse experience as an ecosystems earth scientist and forester living and working in the forests of the Northern Rockies of Montana and Idaho, the Mojave Desert and Joshua Tree preserve in southern California, the rain forest and waters of southeast Alaska and the Bering strait, and the west side Olympic peninsula temperate rain forest.
Q: What does your work look like on a day-to-day basis?
Justin: I’m happy to say my work on a daily basis can be highly variable. I have days where I spend the morning writing grant applications to help bolster funding for our west-side Olympic peninsula conservation work. Then meet a local contractor in the field that afternoon to design and eventually implement a road decommissioning project that will directly improve the riparian condition of TNC lands contiguous to the Hoh River. From writing technical reports to putting up interpretive signs and picking up litter at our local dispersed campsites, I feel fortunate to be able to play a diverse role in maintaining and hopefully improving the overall condition and health of TNC lands in western Washington.
Q: You have an extensive amount of experience in earth and soil science. What drew you to conservation?
Justin: Honestly, at least initially, I think it was the simple fact that I could potentially have a career working outside in the forests and rangelands of the Northern Rocky Mountains. I was very fortunate to spend the next two-plus decades in that capacity, and I eventually specialized in soil science and applied geomorphology in forested ecosystems. This work highlighted how ecosystems really are systems and everything is related. Soils many times are that centralized resource, that literally touch and influence the bedrock, water, and vegetation of these systems, and I try to bring that same connectivity to my work as a conservation forester for TNC.
Q: How do you see climate change impacting the land and people around where you're based and work out of?
Justin: Because many of the west-side Olympic peninsula's large river systems are glacially fed, it is imperative that we design current and future aquatic restoration projects in a way that will effectively account for vastly increased flows well into the future. Ecological changes are coming, and I think it is important to recognize, monitor, and implement measures that account for this change within all our aquatic restoration projects now and into the future.
Q: What do you hope to achieve in Western Washington?
Within both the Clearwater and Hoh forest reserves specifically, I am hoping to continue the comprehensive and forward-looking conservation work already established by my predecessors, and to be an effective and respectable conservation steward of TNC lands every day.
Q: How can someone reading this help support your work?
Take the time to “unplug” and go on a forest walk, or a river walk, or a walk around your local park, and maybe take a second to appreciate the connection we all have with nature, its importance, and its vulnerabilities, and how your actions potentially affect these places, both good and bad. Even if it is just picking up a gum wrapper off the ground, much like the active restoration I can implement on TNC lands, it’s all related and it all counts. No matter the scale.
New research out of the Ellsworth Creek Preserve offers insights into how we can accelerate the development of the old-growth traits that help forests persevere through the most severe impacts of climate change.
A new video promotes the hard work and commitment of Nature Conservancy scientists and collaborators who everyday provide the knowledge crucial for a future where people, lands, and waters thrive in balance.
Drones have emerged as a groundbreaking tool extending our reach beyond the limits of human exploration. While many are familiar with seeing the possibilities in adventure photography or package delivery, the use of drones in conservation has become increasingly creative for those both out in the field and in the lab.
This summer, two University of Washington students joined The Nature Conservancy’s (TNC’s) Science Team as conservation science interns. Alex Crabtree and Katie Thomas spent nine weeks with TNC WA through UW’s EarthLab Summer Internship Program.
Justin Urresti, Conservation Forester knows his work must take place in harmony with community members. This dynamic is especially true in the Clearwater Forest Reserve, acquired by The Nature Conservancy in 2011, as sometimes TNC appears to be opposed to industries that profit off the land. Justin’s forestry methods exist somewhere in the grey. He aims to both rehabilitate a forest that’s been logged since the late 1800s and support a local workforce within a changing economy.
The Nature Conservancy’s Ellsworth Creek Preserve, which occupies the ancestral homelands of the Willapa and Lower Chinook people has and continues to be a host of hundreds of teachers.
Nature Conservancy and University of Washington researchers are monitoring seedling growth and mortality along with local climate to evaluate climate resilience in the face of a changing climate at Ellsworth Creek Preserve.
In the depths of the Ellsworth Creek Preserve forest we found over 1000 different species, across 10 phylum and scientific kingdoms. From Annelids (worms) to Basidiomycetes (fungus) from Arthropods (bees) to Chordates (humans)! Multiple species have either lurked or lived in the soils of Ellsworth.
Justin Urresti is the Conservation Forester for TNC’s Western Washington forests, covering the Hoh, Clearwater, and Ellsworth ecosystems.
It’s in the spirit of joy and delight that we would like to share a look back at some of the conservation success stories, innovation and fun in 2022, shared with gratitude for the support of you and many others that makes this work possible.
To compare how old-growth and secondary-growth tree stands can weather drought conditions, TNC scientist Michael Case uses a drone to collect samples from tree tops at Ellsworth Creek Preserve.
Considered a living laboratory for science and forest management, Ellsworth Creek Preserve is a hub where research institutions and people can come together to understand the effects of forest management as well as foster learning between students and researchers.
Two students from The University of Washington completed science internships with The Nature Conservancy over the summer. Stephanie Passantino and Eileen Arata worked with us on several projects including Ellsworth Preserve camera trap and tree reproduction research projects, an eastern forests literature review, Greening Research in Tacoma, and Port Susan Bay Preserve restoration.
Join us as both Eileen and Stephanie tell us about their experiences this summer in the field!
Writer Owen Oliver travels to the Ellsworth Creek Preserve for the first time, the Indigenous territory of his people, the Willapa Band of the Chinook Indian Nation. Travel with him through old-growth cedar and Sitka spruce and learn what these lands and waters mean to the Chinook.
Wildlife cameras at Ellsworth Creek Preserve capture a black bear mama and her cub.
Preliminary data from the Ellsworth Creek Wildlife Project tests assumptions of forest thinning restoration practices.
Join Dr. Tiara Moore, Postdoctoral Fellow at The Nature Conservancy, as she describes how soil is so important and how it’s the key to solving a lot of human-derived environmental issues we face today.
The Science at Home speaker series reveals the science and creativity behind our work—by putting a spotlight on answering the questions necessary for people and nature to thrive in our state and beyond.
On the Hoh River and In the surrounding Olympic Rainforest, The Nature Conservancy seeks to rebuild the region’s health and resilience to climate change by reconnecting habitat corridors along the Hoh, Quillayute, Queets, and Quinault Rivers from Olympic National Park to the Pacific Ocean.
A small but significant 80-acre acquisition at our Ellsworth Creek Preserve in southwest Washington protects the headwaters of this 8,000-acre watershed where we’ve been working for more than 20 years.
The new property was harvested about five years ago, leaving our Preserve vulnerable to high winds on its boundary that blew down trees, and sediment runoff into Ellsworth Creek. With the acquisition, made possible by generous private donors, we’ll be able to restore it.
Capturing eDNA allows us to provide a census of the diversity of plants, bacteria and animals in a particular area and use the data to inform strategies in how we make decisions that affect the preserve.