Alaska’s congressional delegation is pushing to dismantle Tongass protections by opening areas to harmful logging. Logging of old-growth trees in this region comes with impacts to the ecosystem health, and thus the health of the communities these ecosystems sustain. Additionally, the Tongass National Forest functions as a major carbon sink that removes excess carbon from the atmosphere – meaning damaging the Tongass has global climate implications. A December 2019 report by the Geos Institue confirms the importance of the Tongass as a carbon sink. Learn more about the report here.
Roadless Rule
The U.S. Forest Service has announced that it signed an agreement with the State of Alaska to roll back the Roadless Rule, opening the Tongass National Forest to new road construction that would allow for increased resource extraction in the form of old-growth timber logging. The Roadless Rule, established two decades ago, protects important fish and wildlife habitat on federal lands, protects drinking water, and protects recreation and business opportunities, all of which are crucial to Alaska’s communities and economy. The proposed changes to the Roadless Rule may also impact Alaska’s Chugach National Forest. Changing or repealing this rule will lead only to environmental degradation in these vital forest ecosystems.
The draft Environmental Impact Statement for this project was released on October 19th. U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, Sonny Perdue, and the Forest Service have chosen Alternative Six as their preferred option. Alternative Six would, devastatingly, fully exempt the Tongass National Forest from the 2001 National Roadless Rule. This would put over 9 million acres of the Tongass National Forest at risk for more logging roads and old-growth clearcut logging!
read more https://alaskaconservation.org/2019/12/preserve-the-tongass/
