U.S. Forest Service Approves Plans To Clearcut Roadless Old-Growth in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest

by John J. Berger, Ph.D and Lani Maher

A plan by Viking Lumber Company of Craig, Alaska to clearcut more than five square miles of pristine old growth forest in the Tongass National Forest has run into stiff opposition. On January 11, 2010, a lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska by the Tongass Conservation Society, Greenpeace, and Cascadia Wildlands claiming that the USFS failed to consider the profoundly damaging effects that the Logjam Timber project on Prince of Wales Island, Alaska would have on local wildlife. The project specifically opens 3,422 acres for logging, almost all of which is old-growth. The project is expected to produce 73 million board feet of timber and require the construction of 22 miles of new roads.

An additional suit has been filed by the Organized Village of Kake, an Alaska Native village, to overturn the Tongass exemption to the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, claiming the exemption was to be temporary and is still being illegally implemented by the Forest Service. Several conservation and tourism groups have joined in the lawsuit.

Tongass National Forest, Douglas Island in Juneau, Alaska. September, 2004

The Roadless Rule, adopted by the U.S. Forest Service in 2001 under the Clinton Administration, prevented the construction of new roads in all existing roadless areas of our National Forests. However, in 2003, the Tongass National Forest was exempted from the Roadless Rule through an amendment to the rule proposed by then-Governor of Alaska Frank Murkowski and adopted by the Bush Administration.

In response to these lawsuits, Alaskan Governor Sean Parnell has come to the defense of the timber industry by ordering the Office of Attorney General Daniel S. Sullivan to intervene in the cases to protect timber jobs and uphold the Tongass’ exemption from the Roadless Rule.

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Misty Fjords Waterfall, Ketchikan, Alaska. May, 2007

As pointed out in Forests Forever: Their Ecology, Restoration, and Protection, logging in the Tongass is a very costly way to produce jobs. “Data obtained from the USFS and cited by the nonpartisan budget watchdog group, Taxpayers for Common Sense, revealed in 2005 that each direct timber job created in the Tongass National Forest in 2002 cost $170,000 – quadruple the average U.S. 2002 household income – hardly a sensible way to create rural employment.” Furthermore we noted that, “whereas Tongass timber cannot be profitably cut on a large commercial scale in an ecologically sustainable manner, fishing and tourism in Alaska and elsewhere could provide more jobs and revenue than could the continued destruction of the old-growth forest.”

The Tongass is the nation’s largest stand of continuous temperate rain forest and covers about seventeen million acres. Much of the forest targeted for logging is old growth that took thousands of years to evolve and, if cut, will never return to its old-growth condition on any time scale of interest to present generations. For more information about the Tongass and the general effects that clearcutting has on forests, see Forests Forever, which also contains recommendations on national and global forest-saving action needed (pages 166-231) as well as guidance for citizens reviewing federal timber sales (pages 239-248).

Take Action-What You Can Do To Help Protect the Tongass

    Contact the following officials and tell them why protection of the Tongass is important to you.

  • President Barack Obama
    Contact Form
    Comments for the President: (202) 456-1111

  • United States Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack
    Ph: (202) 720-3631

  • United States Forest Service Director Sherry Reckler
    Ph: (707) 562-9016

  • Alaska Department of Natural Resources Commissioner Tom Irwin
    Ph: (907) 465-2400

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    1. Pemberton, Mary. “Suit Seeks to Overturn Tongass Roadless Exemption.” Associated Press. December 23, 2009.

Additional Resources

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*Note: Pictures featured in this post are not the property of Healthy Forests, but have been released for public use. You can click on them to view them in their original context.

Climate Change Threatens Pervasive Forest Loss

by John J. Berger, Ph.D and Lani Maher

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Aspen leaves showing extensive damage done by the aspen leaf miner
Photo: ©2006, Benson Lee, Copper Center, Alaska

An article by Nicholas Riccardi in Friday’s Los Angeles Times cites global climate change as the primary cause of Sudden Aspen Decline, which has been sweeping through forests of the American West in recent years. Rising temperatures and increased drought conditions—both attributed in part to global warming—have increased populations of insects, such as the aspen bark beetle and aspen leaf miner, to which aspens are highly vulnerable. SAD has ravaged aspen groves in Colorado and elsewhere, significantly transforming the landscape.

Whereas these forests are declining due to the effects of climate change, forests globally have the potential to reduce climate change. Through photosynthesis, healthy forests contribute oxygen to the atmosphere and remove carbon dioxide by storing carbon in plant tissue. This lowers the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Decadent or dormant forests, however, release carbon. As aspen groves die, they stop taking up carbon and release the carbon they had stored.

Forests, of course, can also affect climate locally and regionally by releasing moisture. Tree roots withdraw water from the soil for transport up the stem or trunk to the leaves where the moisture evaporates. The increased atmospheric humidity can reduce or prevent drought.Trees can also extract moisture from the air by their contact with low fog, causing it to condense on leaf surfaces and drip to the ground, where it can add substantially to total annual precipitation. Trees also moderate local temperature extremes and wind velocities.

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Badly infested aspen grove. These trees should be predominantly green, given the time of year that this picture was taken
Photo: ©2006, Benson Lee, Copper Center, Alaska

“In addition to their influence on [local and global] climate, forests purify water by filtering it through litter and soil. Much of the water we drink, either form surface or underground sources, comes from forested watersheds, including water that accumulated eons ago. Forests also increase the amount of water reaching groundwater reservoirs by slowing the rate of surface runoff (which helps prevent floods), thus increasing the percolation of runoff in to the soil. This helps recharge deep groundwater, raises the water table, and makes for more persistent streamflow during dry seasons, benefiting vegetation and wildlife . . . Soil and forest litter absorb rain like a sponge and release it to vegetation and groundwater slowly . . . More than half of the water supplies in the western United States flow from national forests.”2

 

Aspen trees, like most forests, provide a rich habitat for many different plant and animal species. The grasses that sprout under aspen groves help slow runoff, hold soil, reduce erosion, and encourage infiltration of water into the ground, which is important for making water available to nearby metropolitan areas. Therefore, the decline of the aspen in the American West means not only a loss of scenic beauty, ecological vitality, and municipal water supply, but is a harbinger of the pervasive forest loss that climate change will bring to much of the American West and Southwest.

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1 John J. Berger, Forests Forever: Their Ecology, Restoration, and Protection(San Francisco, CA and Chicago, IL, Forests Forever Foundation and Center for American Places at Columbia College, Chicago, 2008), pp. 13-14. Distributed by University of Chicago Press.
2 Ibid.

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To read Nicholas Riccardi’s article, Global Warming Blamed for Aspen Die-off Across the West, please click here.