Old-growth trees provide shade and reduce erosion, which keep streams cool and clear and enable salmon to continue to play their vital role in the ecosystem as food for people and wildlife, as a foundation for local economies, and-when the fish die after spawning-as fertilizer for the surrounding land.Environmentalists say that allowing road construction - a first step toward logging - could devastate the vast wilderness of snowy peaks, rushing rivers and virgin old-growth forest that is widely viewed as one of America’s treasures.Ĭlimate scientists also point out that the Tongass offers an important service to the billions of people across the planet who are unlikely to ever set foot there: It is one of the world’s largest carbon sinks, storing the equivalent of about 8 percent of the carbon stored in all the forests of the lower 48 states combined. In the Tongass, the roadless rule has protected ancient stands of Sitka spruce, western hemlock, western red cedar, and Alaska cedar as well as salmon habitat. Trees, for example, help lessen the effects of climate change by absorbing and storing carbon the Tongass, because of its size, accounts for 8% of all carbon sequestered by U.S. Since the original national roadless protections were put in place in 2001, the rationale for conserving the last roadless areas in the Tongass has been buoyed by numerous scientific studies showing that large, contiguous protected areas are necessary to sustain healthy ecosystems. Outdoor recreation, including hiking, fishing, and boating, is a major economic drivers for local communities around the forest. Forest Service lost $16.1 million on timber sales in the Tongass and since 1980 has lost more than $1.7 billion on sales of timber from there.Ī kayaker paddles toward Douglas Island within the Tongass National Forest. Further, the nonpartisan budget watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense reported that in fiscal year 2019, the U.S. Sustaining the roadless rule protections also makes economic sense: Fishing and tourism account for 26% of the region’s economy, while the timber industry accounts for only 1%. That petition also requested the creation of a Traditional Homelands Conservation Rule. In fact, a dozen southeast Alaska tribes petitioned the federal government at the time to maintain the full roadless rule protections in the Tongass to ensure sustainability of the land that supports traditional foods and cultural practices. and the largest intact coastal temperate rainforest in the world.Ī broad swath of Alaskans opposed the 2020 rollback of the Roadless Area Conservation Rule in the Tongass, including tribes, the commercial fishing community of southeast Alaska, and tourism-centered businesses. This would reverse a Trump administration decision that opened roadless areas to development in approximately half of the Tongass, the largest forest in the U.S. Department of Agriculture in late November proposed restoring long-standing protections across 9 million acres of Tongass National Forest in southeast Alaska. In a move that will benefit a range of wildlife, including salmon and brown bears, along with commercial fishing fleets, Indigenous Alaskans, tourism operators, and others in the state, the U.S.
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