In December, the Alaska Rainforest Defenders submitted comments on the proposed USDA Forest Service Alaska Roadless Rulemaking process.
Click here to download our full comments.
Roadless Area on Prince of Wales. Photo: Elsa Sebastian
Roadless Rule exemption alternatives reflect a transparent attempt by the Alaska Governor's office, the Forest Service, and Alaska's congressional delegation to expand the scale of clearcutting in some of southeast Alaska's most ecologically important ecosystems that provide roadless refugia for salmon and wildlife in areas otherwise surrounded by clearcuts. The decision to open up unlogged, unroaded areas is unacceptable.
This proposed Rulemaking if approved, will continue the trend of mismanaging Southeast Alaska's public old-growth forests as a subsidized federal timber colony that provides high-value cedar to Viking Lumber's de facto parent corporation in Washington State or other Pacific Rim wood processors far outside the region. The Forest Service would then manage its maturing second-growth forests as a plantation for some other out-of-state timber broker, delaying watershed recovery and permanently eliminating habitat for wildlife.
There have long been concerns for deer populations on many central and southern southeast Alaska islands affected by this rulemaking. The Forest Service and State of Alaska have authorized Viking Lumber and Alcan Forest Products/Transpac to destroy much of the best remaining publicly owned winter deer habitat throughout central and southern southeast Alaska. Further removals could cause local wildlife extirpations and force the few survivors into isolated patches of lower quality habitat.
There have been recent and severe declines in pink salmon harvests in Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) regulatory districts in southeast Alaska. In 2016 the pink salmon fishery was a disaster and in 2018 returns were far worse. These declines make it essential for the Forest Service to consider whether the need to provide aquatic habitat for fishery resources used by hundreds of local fishermen and processors should take priority over perceived need to enable one or two timber companies to realize harvest cost savings of a million or two dollars.
A Taxpayers for Common Sense analysis using Forest Service budget data calculated that implementation of Tongass Advisory Committee's 2016 Forest Plan Amendment timber sales will generate taxpayer losses of $367.5 million over the next fifteen years. Isn't that enough for the timber companies?
Failed culvert beneath a logging road in the Tongass. Photo: Becky Knight
Southeast Alaska residents and numerous non-resident businesses that rely on the region's natural capital contained within coastal forest island ecosystems. Industrial activities associated with the removal of remaining old-growth forest and implementation of plantation forestry for recovering second-growth forests will also render the southeast Alaska island shorelines and interior areas undesirable or even inhospitable for visitors to the region who come for recreation - particularly sport fishing and hunting.