One of the Sitka Conservation Society’s strategic goals is to shape a policy for 2^nd growth management on the Tongass and assure that restoration of wildlife habitat is a funded priority.  Recently, we held a workshop in Sitka that brought together diverse user groups from the Tongass with Forest Service staff to think about how we can work together to achieve mutual goals.  Some of the participants in the workshop included a recreational user group of the Tongass, Sitka Tribal Council members, City of Sitka Assembly Members, representatives from State legislative offices, loggers, fishermen, and representatives of the local Economic Development Board.

When attorney and global warming activist, Deborah Williams, came to speak at a Sitka Conservation Society Backwoods and Waters talk in April 2006, she said that Alaska is seeing the catastrophic impacts of global warming more than in any other place in the country. Southeast Alaskans, however, happen to be in the very enviable position of living in one of the world's greatest carbon sinks. Scientists are finding that old-growth trees, which live in much of the Tongass National Forest, sequester amazing amounts of carbon in their soil. In light of this burgeoning evidence, many see that it's time the Forest Service reconsider its management plan of the Tongass so that all old-growth trees are left to remain standing forever.

The U.S. Forest Service has become a tremendously controversial federal agency in recent years, and seems unable to please any of its constituencies with regularity. Pete Bengeyfield, a hydrologist for the agency for 29 years retired last summer and left us with this thoughtful commentary worth reading.

The Tongass Forest Plan Amendment Record of Decision, Final Forest Plan and Final EIS have been released

On the day after Valentine's Day, February 15^th, 2008, the Bush administration officially released the new Tongass Land Management Plan (TLMP) as a belated token of affection to the timber industry.  The new TLMP opens up 3.4 million acres to logging and mining.  Nearly two-thirds of those acres are now roadless and timber extraction in those areas will require generous public road construction subsidies in order to generate raw log exports for mills in the lower 48 and in Asia.  The outgoing administration proposes to extract up to 267 million board feet of timber per year - about six times the amount that timber operators have been willing to purchase annually since the turn of the century.

The heart of the debate about logging in Alaska comes down to the fate of big tree forests. These forests harbor tremendous wildlife habitat, offer the best hunting and camping, and yet have been systematically targeted by the timber industry for decades. Click Here to read a short photographic biography of these ancient forests.  

Learn about how public forests in Southeast Alaska are managed by the U.S. Forest Service. Learn how you, as a member of the general public, can Take Charge and be involved in forest management.