WASHINGTON, DC, May 23, 2002 (ENS) - The largest intact temperate rainforest in the world stretches along 1,000 miles of coastline from Ketchikan to Kodiak, Alaska. Most of this rainforest lies within the 22 million acres of the Tongass and Chugach National Forests.

Clearcut logging on Kathleen Lake, west side of Admiralty Island, Tongass National Forest (Photo courtesy U.S. Forest Service)

But all is not well in the forest. Clearcutting, logging roads, and other development activities are making inroads, destroying the quiet wilderness.

The U.S. Forest Service has decided not to set aside any of the nine million roadless acres of the Tongass National Forest in Alaska as protected wilderness. The decision May 17, the Bush administration's first major action on wilderness protection, drew heavy criticism from conservation groups.

The agency said it had completed an "intensive" reevaluation of the current condition of the Tongass roadless acres. Eight different alternatives were developed and analyzed, ranging from no areas recommended to Congress for wilderness designation to 9.7 million acres recommended.

In the current plan, only about 330,000 acres of the 9.7 million acres are scheduled for timber harvesting over the next 100 years. But without a wilderness designation, all of those acres remain vulnerable to future logging.

Conservation groups condemned the Forest Service decision.

"I think Americans will be shocked by this decision," said Earthjustice attorney Deirdre McDonnell. "Future generations will ask how, in 9.4 million acres of the world's last intact temperate rainforest, the Bush administration didn't see one acre worth preserving as wilderness."

Located in Southeast Alaska's panhandle, the Tongass extends from Dixon Entrance in the south to Yakutat in the north. The Tongass includes a narrow mainland strip of steep, rugged mountains and icefields, and more than 1,000 offshore islands known as the Alexander Archipelago. Together, the islands and mainland have nearly 11,000 miles of meandering shoreline, with many bays and coves.

The Forest Service Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS), the document by which the agency rejected any new wilderness areas in the Tongass, did recognize the spiritual value of wilderness. "In a world characterized by rapid change and complexity," the Forest Service said, "the symbolic or spiritual value of wilderness may be increasingly important."

Bear family in the Tongass National Forest on Admiralty Island near Juneau, Alaska (Photo courtesy Greens Creek Mine)

"The spiritual values associated with wilderness can be specific religious and cultural values attributed to particular places or types of landscapes. Alternatively, they may represent the feelings that people have for wild, natural landscapes that are often difficult to put into words. Although difficult to characterize or value in monetary terms, these types of values are very important for a lot of people. Segments of the public place high value on the knowledge that wilderness exists, whether they use it or not," the Forest Service acknowledged.

"There is interest in preserving large portions of the Tongass because the majority of the Forest is in a natural condition, unlike most other national forests, and the Tongass represents a significant portion of the world’s remaining temperate rainforests," the DEIS states.

But the agency placed more importance on the economic benefits to be derived from the forest. "Many communities in Southeast Alaska depend on the Tongass National Forest to provide the foundation for natural resource based industries, including wood products, commercial fishing and fish processing, recreation, tourism, mining, and mineral development. Many residents also depend on subsistence hunting and fishing to meet their basic needs. There is very little private land throughout the region to provide these resources," the agency said.

The Alaska Rainforest Campaign is working from offices in Washington, DC and Alaska to permanently protect this forest wilderness by raising support for the Alaska Rainforest Conservation Act.

Introduced in the House of Representatives last September, the Alaska Rainforest Conservation Act (HR 2908) would permanently safeguard the remaining wildlands of the Tongass and Chugach National Forests to provide for hunting, fishing, recreation, tourism, and traditional subsistence activities. A total of 81 river systems would be protected from the effects of logging and other development activities.

Representatives Rosa DeLauro, a Connecticut Democrat, and Connie Morella, a Maryland Republican, originated the bill which now has 100 cosponsors.

To find out if any particular Representative has signed on as a cosponsor, visitors to the Alaska Rainforest Campaign website can input a zipcode.

If the Representative in that district has not yet cosponsored the Alaska Rainforest Conservation Act, the campaign website brings up a form letter with a space for personal comments, making it easy for citizens to urge their Representatives to support the bill.

Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro speaks on behalf of forest protection (Photo courtesy Office of the Representative)

DeLauro, who represents New Haven, Connecticut, at the other end of the country from Alaska, believes that the United States must "stop commercial exploitation of environmentally sensitive land."

Introducing the bill, she told the House, "This bill has the bipartisan support of over 400 Alaska and national conservation, sporting and religious organizations."

The bill would provide additional protections for National Forest System lands in Alaska through the designation of wilderness areas, wilderness study areas, Land Use Designation II management areas, restoration areas, special management areas, and additional components of the national wild and scenic rivers system.

If the bill is passed, it would protect 3.2 million acres of the Tongass National Forest for wilderness and another 5.8 million acres from commercial logging.

In the Chugach National Forest, 3.6 million acres would be protected as wilderness and an additional 236,000 acres would be designated as a Wilderness Study area, under the Alaska Rainforest Conservation Act.

The Chugach did win new protections on May 17. The Forest Service announced that an upcoming revision of the Chugach National Forest plan will include a recommendation of more than 1.4 million acres in Prince William Sound, about 25 percent of the forest, for wilderness designation. This is the body of water that was fouled by the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, the largest in American history.

Stream entering Prince William Sound (Photo courtesy National Wildlife Federation)

For information on the Chugach forest plan revision, visit: http://www.fs.fed.us/r10/chugach/ and click on the button labeled "Forest Plan."

But logging would still be allowed in some parts of these forests. The Alaska Rainforest campaign estimates that there are more than 10 billion board feet of timber along the more than 4,500 miles of existing forest roads that would not be affected by the Alaska Rainforest Conservation Act.

Congresswoman DeLauro said, "This legislation has been carefully crafted to strike a balance amongst the competing interests in these great forests. Less than 15 million acres of the total forest would receive critical land use protections under this bill. These areas under threat of development have significant ecological and wildlife habitat values and have been traditional hunting, fishing, subsistence use areas for Alaskans for generations."

Today the bill is in committee, and the House has requested an executive comment from the U.S. Department of Agriculture which has jurisdiction over the nation's forests.

If the bill becomes law, taxpayers could save millions of dollars. "Since 1992 the U.S. government has spent over $500 million on logging and related activities on the Tongass," the campaign says.

Campaign members that are national groups include The Wilderness Society, Defenders of Wildlife, the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund. For a complete list of supporting groups visit: http://www.akrain.org/about_us.asp

Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2002. All rights reserved.