Tongass National Forest in Alaska is the planet’s largest intact temperate rainforest and it is now in danger of exploitation. President Donald Trump has reportedly ordered the U.S. Department of Agriculture to open it up to logging and other corporate development projects involving energy and mining. Meanwhile, thousands of fires are ripping through the Amazon rainforest and putting the “lungs of the world” in grave danger. “If the planet could talk,” wrote volcanologist Jess Phoenix, “it would be screaming in agony or weeping in despair. Maybe both.”
President Trump has instructed Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue to exempt Alaska’s 16.7-million-acre Tongass National Forest from logging restrictions imposed nearly 20 years ago, a move that would affect more than half of the forest. The restrictions barred the construction of roads in 58.5 million acres of undeveloped national forest across the country. These restrictions have been under non-stop scrutiny by Republicans since they were implemented, but federal courts have allowed them to stand.
As The Washington Post reported:
Politicians have tussled for years over the fate of the Tongass, a massive stretch of southeastern Alaska replete with old-growth spruce, hemlock and cedar, rivers running with salmon, and dramatic fjords. President Bill Clinton put more than half of it off limits to logging just days before leaving office in 2001, when he barred the construction of roads in 58.5 million acres of undeveloped national forest across the country. President George W. Bush sought to reverse that policy, holding a handful of timber sales in the Tongass before a federal judge reinstated the Clinton rule.
Trump’s decision to weigh in, at a time when Forest Service officials had planned much more modest changes to managing the agency’s single largest holding, revives a battle that the previous administration had aimed to settle.
In 2016, the agency finalized a plan to phase out old-growth logging in the Tongass within a decade. Congress has designated more than 5.7 million acres of the forest as wilderness, which must remain undeveloped under any circumstances. If Trump’s plan succeeds, it could affect 9.5 million acres…
John Schoen, a retired wildlife ecologist who worked in the Tongass for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, co-authored a 2013 research paper finding that roughly half of the forest’s large old-growth trees had been logged last century. The remaining big trees provide critical habitat for black bear, Sitka black-tailed deer, a bird of prey called the Northern Goshawk and other species, he added.
Many environmentalists are outraged at the president’s move and have been comparing him to Jair Bolsonaro, the Brazilian president who they say has rapidly accelerated deforestation in the Amazon. However, not everyone is against Trumps decision to remove the “roadless rule.” For example, Alaskan Gov. Mike Dunleavy (R) and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R), have pressed Trump to exempt their state from the rule, which does not allow roads except when the Forest Service approves specific projects.
Murkowski said in a statement that “Alaska’s entire congressional delegation and the governor have sought to block the roadless rule.” She said:
It should never have been applied to our state, and it is harming our ability to develop a sustainable, year-round economy for the Southeast region, where less than one percent of the land is privately held. The timber industry has declined precipitously, and it is astonishing that the few remaining mills in our nation’s largest national forest have to constantly worry about running out of supply.
Those who love the planet may be appalled but Alaskan leaders have found a powerful ally in the president. When reporters spoke to Dunleavy, here’s what she said of the president:
He really believes in the opportunities here in Alaska, and he’s done everything he can to work with us on our mining concerns, timber concerns; we talked about tariffs as well. We’re working on a whole bunch of things together, but the president does care very much about the state of Alaska.
If federal restrictions were lifted, it is unclear how much logging would end up taking place because the Forest Service would have to amend its management plan to hold a new timber sale. The 2016 plan identified 962,000 acres as suitable for commercial timber and suggested no more than 568,000 acres of that should be logged.
The worrisome part is the fact that in Alaska consensus to bar roads has been more elusive, with many state officials arguing that the limits have hampered development. The Forest Service has approved at least 55 projects in roadless areas – including 36 for mining and 10 related to the power sector – and most of them won approval “within a month of submission,” according to an agency fact sheet.
The only reason they didn’t follow through with the projects is the permitting takes years and they become too expensive explains Robert Venables, executive director of the Southeast Conference. “The roadless rule has shown itself to be very arbitrary and cumbersome,” Venables said. “Many projects have proven to be uneconomic because of the constraints here.”
On the other hand, several businesses located in the region are pro the current restrictions because the forest’s rugged landscapes, abundant wildlife, and pristine terrain draw visitors.
Dan Blanchard, owner, and CEO of the adventure travel firm UnCruise Adventures, who has 350 employees and brings 7,000 guests to Alaska each year, said:
The demand for wilderness and uncut areas have just dramatically increased. Our view here is, there are very few places in the world that are wild. Here we have one, in southeast Alaska, and it’s being put at risk.
