Five Stories:
What WEAN Achieved In 2024
As the year comes to a close, we are reflecting on what we have achieved as an organization over the last year. We are proud of the work we've done — and are preparing for the long road ahead as we continue to work to enhance biodiversity, protect drinking water for generations to come, and improve the overall health of our forests on Whidbey and Camano Islands.
These five stories are just the beginning — and each will be a continued priority in the years to come.
Protecting Forests For Public Benefit
After a year of recurring 1:1 and small group meetings with local leaders, WEAN was gratified when Island County Commissioners and staff placed Public Benefit Ratings System forestry reform on the 2025 work plan. Thanks to our advocacy, local leaders now recognize the importance of making this program better and are taking positive action.
The Public Benefit Rating System is a tax program designed to incentivize people to steward forests and other land for collective wellbeing. In its current form in Island County, it is neither inclusive enough nor incentivizing enough to compete with commercial timber interests. The program currently fails to protect the amount of forest cover we need to sustain our aquifer, our clean air, or our way of life.
We are looking forward to being a stakeholder in the conversation around PBRS in the upcoming year as a part of the BOCC's work plan.
Engaging Community In Local Comprehensive Planning
In consortium with Island Roots Housing and the Agricultural Resource Committee of Island County with fiscal sponsor Goosefoot Community Fund, WEAN designed an initiative to bring more community voices to the table during the comprehensive planning process. The Comprehensive Plan will directly impact codes, ordinances, and budget allocations for projects over the next 20 years. Making changes here will impact our ability to advocate for environmental rights over the next decades.
With funding from the Washington State Department of Commerce and donors in our community, we are evolving our outreach styles and strategies to engage community members in Oak Harbor, Camano, Coupeville, and South Whidbey in the civic process, with a focus on reaching those who have been historically marginalized and un- or under-represented in comprehensive planning. We also have representation on Coupeville’s climate resilience committee and advocate in Langley, Coupeville, and Oak Harbor for responsible Comprehensive Planning.
Together with our community, we’re bringing more voices to the work of ensuring ecosystem protection, climate resilience, economic justice, housing access, farmland protection, and food security are treated as interconnected and vital aspects of our collective future as Island County writes the plan that will shape our next 20 years of Island life.
Building Partnerships And Collaborations For Greater Impact
Representatives from Whidbey Camano Land Trust, Pacific Rim Institute, and Whidbey Environmental Action Network tour the Pacific Rim prairie and forest.
With a new generation of WEAN leaders at the helm, we’re taking a larger role as collaborative local leaders in environmental education, activism, and advocacy to better protect ecosystems at home and beyond.
We’re taking a proactive approach to advancing environmental protections by collaborating with local elected leaders on both sides of the aisle, with city and county staff, with citizen scientists, with nonprofit organizers, and with the broader public while remaining ready to litigate when needed to protect this place we all love.
WEAN's partnerships are amplifying our impact with local jurisdictions and a network of values-aligned nonprofits. This year alone, we have partnered formally and informally with Whidbey Camano Land Trust, Whidbey Climate Action, Oak Harbor Garry Oak Society, Oak Harbor Garden Club, Pacific Rim Institute, Citizens of Ebey’s Reserve, Sound Defense Alliance, Futurewise, and others and we expect this trend to continue.
When we work together, our collective power grows.
With this multi-track approach, we are building broad support for solutions that increase biodiversity, enhance ecosystem function, and protect beloved wild places while expanding understanding of a fundamental truth: functional ecosystems are vital to support human health, resilient societies, and sustainable economies. Protecting them now matters deeply to us all.
Growing Our Capacity To Advocate, Educate, And Protect
WEAN Board and staff at a retreat at the Pacific Rim Institute in April 2024.
Our team now includes seven board members and two staff members, Executive Director Marnie Jackson and Engagement Director Amanda Bullis, with part time assistance from founder/consultants Marianne Edain and Steve Erickson. We look forward to continuing to sustainably increase our capacity and impact with the addition of Research Assistant, Program Director, and Development Director roles in the coming years as funds and capacity allow, and 2025 we hope to bring more energy into the system through a Skilled Internship program we’re developing with institutions of higher education.
On the public engagement front, we have transformed our program with the addition of the
Act Now page on the WEAN website, 22 episodes of the
Action Hour podcast, and a
new newsletter format with more local and regional environmental news. We also hosted walks in the woods and on the prairie to give our community some direct contact with the lands we love. In December, we launched our newest civic engagement program funded by the Climate Commitment Act through the Department of Commerce,
Finding Your Civic Voice, which will extended into the first quarter of 2025.
Strengthening and Upholding Environmentally Protective Laws
Oak Harbor community members advocating to keep their right to vote on the disposition of public parkland.
WEAN works to strengthen the laws and ordinances that protect the environment as well as to hold those who break the law accountable. Whether illegal or unethical action threatens a single parcel or an entire community, WEAN acts.
We respond 1:1 to community members’ arising environmental protection concerns, provide expert advice, and coach people on taking effective action when they see environmental harm in their own neighborhoods. We also take note when behaviors escalate to trends—maintaining a database of Forest Practices Applications, sounding the alarm at State Environmental Protection Act violations, and advocating against illegal and short sighted installation of concrete bulkheads where they would damage habitat without affording long term protection against rising seas.
In addition to monitoring arising issues and trends, we closely follow key cases where we believe laws have been broken and are poised to act if or when they become legally actionable. In August 2024, we
filed suit against the City of Oak Harbor in Island County Superior Court for adopting Ordinance 1999 in a process which we believed violated the state’s code of ethics for municipal officers and the State Environmental Policy Act. The decision, which removes some rights of the public to vote on disposal of public parkland, directly threatens Hal Ramaley Memorial Park and Imagine Permaculture Forest with development for a hotel parking lot and indirectly threatens all city park land.
Moving Into 2025
As we move into 2025, we will continue to focus on forest protection through the reform of the county's PBRS program and community engagement around the Comprehensive Plan, which is due to the state in December of 2025. In addition to continuing to advocate for ecosystems and grow our capacity in the areas of focus in 2024, we will also work towards:
- Creating an ambitious county-wide Biodiversity Plan
- Galvanizing public action by developing Visual Data Storytelling skills
- Engaging a Scientific And TEK Advisory Committee (STAC)
- Relaunching our membership program to expand our reach and impact
We hope that you will continue to support our work, become a WEAN member in the new year, and maybe even consider applying for our Scientific and Traditional Ecological Knowledge Advisory Committee.
See you in the new year!
If you are curious about membership, please reach out to Amanda at engage@whidbeyenvironment.org.
