The Tongass National Forest is our home.
The public lands of the Tongass are important for all Americans, but they’re essential for those of us who live here. This is where our families hunt, fish, gather food, and work on the land in ways that just aren't possible anywhere else in the country.
But Senator Murkowski wants to privatize it.
Senator Murkowski has introduced a suite of devastating bills that would:
- Roll back the 2016 Tongass Plan Amendment and ramp up old growth clearcut logging in our forests;
- Repeal the Roadless Rule in Alaska. This would put intact stands of important old growth habitat at risk of clearcutting, threaten crucial salmon and wildlife habitat, and burden taxpayers with the exorbitant cost of roadbuilding in these remote areas;
- Require the government to buy back degraded lands from corporations that clearcut the forest;
- Require the Forest Service to trade worthless gravel and rock beneath clearcut land for pristine forests with high value timber and very high value rare-earth metal mining rights;
- Bypass the normal process of appraisal and result in a major loss for taxpayers and the American public;
- Privatize thousands of acres of the Tongass National Forest.
Your voice matters!
Write to your senator below. We'll deliver your words straight to Washington, D.C.
If you want to submit your letter to your local newspaper, let us know! We can help you hone your argument and get your words published.
Showing 74 reactions
I live in SE Alaska, where our lives are inextricably intertwined with the Tongass forest. I am a teacher at an alternative school, where most of our students come from a history of ongoing trauma. Every week, sometimes every day, we try to get them outside, and I watch how the forest changes them and heals them.
The Tongass has sustained 3 different Alaska Native people groups for thousands of years. Today it supports wild salmon and the tourist industry, employing thousands of people in the region. When residents talk about the weekend here, they always seem to take place in the forest. Weddings, birthdays, memorials, hikes, wildlife watching, and more. Our lives are lived in the forest.
Even people that have never heard of the Tongass benefit from it. Our carbon stores are among the densest in the world. We help to mitigate carbon expenditures across the globe.
I was deeply dismayed to hear that you are proposing to weaken our protections. Please reconsider. Please be a voice for the people of southeast Alaska, and for people all over the world, protecting something that has been for thousands of years, not a voice for those that would destroy it for a quick buck.
thank you,
Naomi Love
YDHS teacher
Juneau, Alaska
I am aware that the Forest Service is responsible for managing the forest, but this is not “caring for the land and/or serving the people”. Please tell me one person, other than someone that stands to make a lot of money from this action, that this is “serving”? No one, without an agenda, wants this beautiful forest clear cut. Please do not stand idly by while this travesty is at your doorstep, so our kids and their kids will have this magical place in the future.
You must not privatize the public lands in the Tongass and open them to logging. It is a short sited decision that is morally incorrect and is going to have devastating effects on the ecology and landscape of the Tongass. Clear cutting causes land slides, especially in places that receive as much rain as the Tongass. Please back away from the Tongass and leave it public. Have conscience please and do the right thing, leave the Tongass public and do not open it to logging.
Sincerely,
John Crawford
I emplore you to reconsider this plan to privatize the Tongass Forest and repeal the Roadless Rule – this would be a terrible mistake. Please save this highly sensitive ecosystem from the perils of habitat destruction that are certain to follow these changes. This forest best serves the long-term needs of Alaska and he United States as an in-tact, preserved forest. Don’t be shortsighted. Don’t rob the future children of this unique resource!
Kind Regards,
Jennifer Dever
Concerned citizen of the USA
I emplore you to reconsider this plan to privatize the Tongass Forest and repeal the Roadless Rule – this would be a terrible mistake. Please save this highly sensitive ecosystem from the perils of habitat destruction that are certain to follow these changes. This forest best serves the long-term needs of Alaska and he United States as an in-tact, preserved forest. Don’t be shortsighted. Don’t rob the future children of this unique resource!
Kind Regards,
Jennifer Dever
Concerned citizen of the USA
My husband and I live in Arizona, but we have made repeated trips to the magnificent waterways of the Tongass National Forest in coastal Southeast Alaska.
We have spent a lot of money on these trips to SE Alaska, and virtually all that money was spent on Alaska-owned transportation companies, and in the communities of SE Alaska.
Therefore we were dumbfounded to learn that Alaska’s own senator would be proposing the further degradation of the forests of Tongass National Forest by allowing increased privatization of the Tongass, and increased clearcutting at taxpayer expense.
This cannot be in the long-term interest of the citizens of SE Alaska, who depend heavily on tourist money. I can certainly say that the further trips we were already planning to SE Alaska would be affected by this kind of short-sighted activity.
Please reconsider.
Thanks,
Pearl Mast
Please do the right thing for the Tongass and withdraw your amendments to the budget bill which would severely affect your constituents in Southeast Alaska. We depend on this magnificent land for our physical and emotional nourishment and need to protect one of the few old growth forests in America.
Sincerely,
Joan McBeen
PO Box 23
Tenakee Springs, AK 99841.
I am sixteen years old and I live in Sitka, Alaska. My family puts a huge priority in subsistence living and most of the protein I’ve ever eaten is from the forest and the surrounding waters.
I have spent so much time in old growth forest. It has helped shape who I am and it is incredibly important to me to see this forest preserved. I want my children and grandchildren to experience old growth forest.
I am wholly opposed to any rollbacks to Tongass preservation. I am also wholly opposed to Tongass land privatization. I want to see this amazing forest to stay untouched for generations. I am sure that Tongass land privatization and rollbacks of preservation measures will not help the Tongass.
Think about the legacy that you will be leaving. Do you want our kids and grandkids to like you for preserving the Tongass or despise you for promoting logging?
Furthermore, my generation is going to be of voting age soon, and we don’t like logging. We go for preservation. We won’t vote for pro-logging Senators and Representatives and they will not stay in power.
Please consider my thoughts. Reconsider your views on this issue.
Thank you. Blake LaPerriere