THE TONGASS IS A SPECIAL PLACE — AND IS CRITICAL TO HUMANITY’S SURVIVAL
Political unrest, culture wars, and the COVID-19 pandemic continue to dominate the news while the critical issues of climate breakdown and environmental degradation seldom grab headlines and then only during dramatic events like the disastrous West coast wildfires of 2020 or, more recently, the extreme winter weather that resulted in Texas’s deadly power grid outage. One non-headline-grabber in mainstream media but of profound consequence is the story of ongoing efforts to desecrate the Tongass Wilderness in Alaska. However, it is one we cannot afford to turn a blind eye to.
The Tongass is unique. Considered the crown jewel of the National Forest system, it is located on the Southeastern coast of Alaska and centered on a 500-mile long archipelago of more than 1,000 islands interconnected by countless channels, bays, and glistening blue glacial fjords. Its waterways are teeming with marine life that includes humpback and killer whales, Steller sea lions, harbor seals, sea otters, and Dall’s porpoises. Seabirds like murres, auklets, puffins, cormorants, and gulls flourish there as well.
The forestlands of the Tongass are home to over 400 species of wildlife, and offer unparalleled opportunities to spot Alexander archipelago wolves, coastal brown and black bears, black-tailed deer, northern goshawks, spawning salmon, and many species endangered elsewhere in the United States, such as marbled murrelets, grizzly bears, and bald eagles. 700 miles of hiking trails provide inspiring views of the Pacific Ocean to the West and coastal mountains to the East. 200-foot-tall spruce, 500-year-old cedars, and 1200-year-old Western Hemlocks soar majestically above its forest floor.
According to the Oregon-based Geos Institute, the 16.7 million-acre Tongass is also the world’s largest temperate rainforest and, as such, is a huge carbon reservoir. The president and chief scientist of Geos, Dominick DellaSala, estimates that the Tongass keeps hundreds of millions of tons of carbon, up to 44% of the total stored by U.S. forests, out of the atmosphere. In addition, its trees absorb roughly 8% of carbon dioxide pollution produced annually by the U.S. This is more than all other national forests combined. Climate science signals that it is incontrovertible, the continued health of the Tongass is critical as a bulwark against climate breakdown, and any large-scale damage to its forests would have dire consequences for the health of the planet.
DellaSala-2021-Tongass.pdf (wild-heritage.org)
Until recently, the Roadless Rule protected 9.4 million pristine acres, roughly 55%, of the Tongass. Enacted during the Clinton administration, the Rule restricts development including roads in federal forestlands that are deemed “exceptional”. In late 2020, however, the Trump administration, in what could be considered one of its final acts of environmental terrorism, rescinded the Rule for the Tongass in order to open it up to the logging. Sadly, Alaska’s governor and legislature applauded the move even though more logging would harm a robust economy based on fishing and tourism and would likely cost taxpayers millions of dollars in government subsidies. Such subsidies, historically, have been designed solely to ensure timber industry profits. To date, logging on unprotected Tongass forests, most notably on Prince of Wales Island, has already cost taxpayers an estimated $600 million dollars over the past 20 years according to the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense.
If the rollback proceeds, it will set the stage for the logging of 185,000 acres of old-growth forest using the extreme timber industry practice of clearcutting, a practice that targets areas for a complete stripping of trees. Clearcutting in the Tongass would accelerate climate breakdown by eliminating the carbon sink of the logged mature trees and, according to DellaSala, would place an estimated four million tons of carbon emissions into the atmosphere annually. It would also result in habitat destruction, soil erosion, and degradation of waterways.
King, pink, coho, and sockeye salmon thrive in the unspoiled rivers and streams of the Tongass and comprise 25% of the annual West coast fish harvest. They are one of the most important species that would be impacted by clearcutting. More than just a human food source, salmon supercharge forest ecosystems with nutrients when they return from the ocean to spawn and die. In a symbiotic relationship, trees provide the spawning fish and their offspring with cooling summer shade and warming winter shelter. Additionally, extensive root systems provide protection against flooding and soil erosion that could otherwise harm salmon habitat. Construction of roads during timber projects introduces erosion and disrupts passageways for the fish, while the loss of the logged trees robs the salmon of their benefits. The decline of the salmon populations, in turn, translates to a nutrient loss for the forest. Logging would be a terrible lose-lose-lose for the fish, the forest, and the waters of the Tongass.
Tongass twisted: Alaska salmon habitat loses clearcutting protections | National Fisherman
Extensive logging in the Tongass would also promote environmental injustice. It would despoil the ancestral home for over 10,000 years of 70,000 indigenous peoples of the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian tribes, would disrupt their culture, and threaten food security that is dependent upon subsistence hunting and fishing. According to Joel Jackson, president of the Organized Village of Kake tribal council:
“We are tied to our lands that our ancestors walked thousands of years ago. We walk these same lands. It still provides food security — deer, moose, salmon, berries, our medicines. The old-growth timber plays an important part in keeping all these things coming back year after year; it’s our supermarket year around. And it’s a spiritual place where we go to ground ourselves from time to time.”
In response to the Trump directive on the Roadless Rule, indigenous tribes and a large coalition of environmental groups joined in partnership, and on December 23, 2020, the alliance filed a lawsuit to restore Rule protections. They received additional backing from the Alaskan visitor industry as well as the state’s commercial fishermen. Congress independently moved to reinstate and codify the Rule in January with the introduction of the Roadless Conservation Act of 2021. While President Biden has not yet weighed on the matter, conservationists hope that he will honor his commitments to the environment and do his part to ensure that the roadless policy is reinstated for the Tongass.
When enacted in 2001, public support for the Roadless Rule was overwhelming and a recent study commissioned by Pew Research determined that 3 out of 4 Americans still support it. That support needs now to be translated into the protection of the Tongass in perpetuity, not only for its untouched beauty, prolific wildlife, and the home that it provides to native tribes, but because it is both our “salmon forest” and our “climate forest”.
The challenges we face due to political unrest, culture wars and COVID-19 are considerable but do not, ultimately, threaten the very existence of humankind. Anthropogenic climate change does and deserves, at the very least, to share headlines alongside these other important issues. If we are to halt and reverse the threat of total climate breakdown, increased awareness about the vital role of our forests for planetary health is important and there should be a clarion call to put an end to harmful logging practices like clearcutting, not only in Alaska but throughout the United States as well as worldwide.
As for the Tongass, we need it far more than it needs us and the most sensible thing we can do for it and for ourselves is to leave it intact and leave its inhabitants alone.
CONTACTS FOR AGENCIES FIGHTING TO PROTECT THE ROADLESS RULE
Joel Jackson, Tribal President, Organized Village of Kake, (907) 518–1592
Robert Starbard, Tribal Administrator, Hoonah Indian Association
Lee Wallace, President, Organized Village of Saxman, (907) 617–3128
Linda Behnken, Executive Director, Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association, (907) 738–3615
Hunter McIntosh, President, The Boat Company
Dan Blanchard, CEO, Uncruise
Sally Schlichting, Southeast Alaska Conservation Council (SEACC), (907) 957–3488
Becky Knight, President, Alaska Rainforest Defenders
Corey Himrod, Alaska Wilderness League, (202) 266–0426
Anne Hawke, Natural Resources Defense Council, (646) 823–4518
Gwen Dobbs, Defenders of Wildlife, (202) 329–9295
Katherine Quaid, Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN), (541) 325–1058
Virginia Cramer, Sierra Club, (804) 519–8449
Rebecca Sentner, Audubon Alaska, (907) 276–7034
Chelsi Moy, The Wilderness Society, (406) 240–3013
Randi Spivak, Center for Biological Diversity, (310) 779–4894
Josh Chetwynd, Environment America, (303) 573–5558
Mary Jo Brooks, National Wildlife Federation, (303) 441–5144
Rebecca Bowe, Earthjustice, (415) 217–2093
