Jane Fonda: Save Alaska’s Tongass National Forest from loggers in climate change fight
The Trump administration has proposed removing logging protections from the Alaskan rainforest. But now is the time to plant trees, not cut them down.
By Jane Fonda – Opinion contributor, USA Today, published December 31, 2019
I’ve been in Washington, D.C., for the last three months doing weekly actions called Fire Drill Fridays — because what 97% of active climate scientists are saying scares me, and I feel the need to do more.
According to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s report issued in October 2018, if we don’t make great strides toward lowering greenhouse gas emissions in the next 10 years, the magnitude of the changes we’re already seeing will accelerate and may become irreversible.
We have the technology to transition away from fossil fuels, and this can’t happen soon enough. At the same time, we need to take proactive measures to reduce the concentration of carbon emissions already in the atmosphere.
That doesn’t necessarily require expensive technology. Trees are carbon sponges, and some scientists estimate that planting billions of new trees across the globe would be the cheapest and most effective way to absorb and store the emissions contributing to climate change. Planting new trees is important — and so is protecting existing forestland.
Our natural carbon-eating resource
The Tongass National Forest in Southeastern Alaska is one of the world’s last intact temperate rainforests and the largest national forest in the United States. It is also a vital resource in the battle against climate change. In addition to being crucial for Alaska’s outdoor recreation industry and a diverse haven of wildlife and wilderness, the Tongass is also a mammoth carbon sink.
By itself, this one national forest traps an estimated 8% of the total carbon stored across all national forests in the contiguous U.S. Yet the Trump administration is proposing to exempt the Tongass from the 2001 Roadless Rule, an important protection that keeps roads out of the forest’s wildest places and protects trees from industrial clear-cutting.
Rolling back this safeguard could potentially open up for new logging large swaths of the 9.5 million acres currently protected by the rule. It could lead to miles of new road construction that would irreversibly alter this old-growth temperate rainforest. Instead of giving us more time to transition to clean energy, allowing new logging in the Tongass would create a new source of additional carbon emissions.
In the face of a climate crisis, this proposal is astoundingly irresponsible and reckless. It’s also an attack on indigenous peoples of southeast Alaska.
Native Alaskans need allies
The Tongass exists within the traditional territories of the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian peoples. Many in the Alaska Native community continue to depend upon the healthy watersheds and abundant fish and wildlife habitats in this magnificent forest for their food and livelihoods. All of that would be threatened by road development and logging.
Beginning in the 1950s, industrial-scale logging wiped out vast stands of trees across the Tongass. In addition to presenting concerns about food security, new logging has the potential to destroy sacred sites and areas of traditional and customary use that are integral to Alaska Native culture and heritage.
Earlier this year, a delegation of indigenous women from Southeast Alaska traveled to Washington, D.C., to advocate for the Tongass and against any exemption from the Roadless Rule. They met with members of Congress and explained how important the Tongass is to their way of life, their culture and their history. And their urgent message is included in my Fire Drill Friday climate action. It’s important for allies to stand with them in opposing dangerous new logging in the Tongass.
Everyone who cares about those forests, and about the future of our civilization as we know it, should contact their members of Congress and Sonny Perdue, secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture that introduced the proposal, to call for the Roadless Rule to remain intact.
Jane Fonda is an actor, activist and author. Follow her on Twitter: @Janefonda
Join the Cornerstone Network
Sign up with a monthly donation and become part of our Cornerstone Network. Network members recieve the messages posted here first, delivered directly to your inbox. Your ongoing support is the foundation of our work.
Samantha Medlock is President of Climate Risk Advisors, helping communities and organizations advance equity, sustainability, and resilience. Her career began chasing floods as a local official in Texas Flash Flood Alley—a hands-on experience that still shapes her approach to climate and disaster risk management.
Arsum is the Senior Adaptation and Coastal Resilience Specialist for the National Wildlife Federation’s Southcentral Region. In this role, she advances climate adaptation efforts, with a focus on nature-based approaches to address the impacts of climate change and extreme events across the Gulf region. She has authored and co-authored numerous publications on climate impact assessments and adaptation solutions. Additionally, she regularly participates in state-based coastal resilience and hazard mitigation planning across the Gulf, collaborating with regional and local stakeholders.
Frank is the former President of the Reinsurance Association of America. Frank currently serves on the Advisory Board of the OECD’s International Network for the Financial Management of Large-Scale Disasters, the RAND Center on Catastrophic Risk Management and Compensation, and the University of Cincinnati’s Carl H. Lindner III Center for Insurance and Risk Management Advisory Board.
Jim is a multilingual world traveler. Based in Bavaria during the 1970s, Jim spent most of this period in India, Afghanistan and Nepal, where he founded and operated a charitable medical clinic serving Tibetan Refugees. He settled in Oregon in 1983 on a forested ranch in the Umpqua National Forest.
Dr. Micah Hahn is an Associate Professor of Environmental Health in the Institute for Circumpolar Health Studies at the University of Alaska-Anchorage. She received her joint PhD in Epidemiology / Environment and Resources from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her MPH in Global Environmental Health from Emory University. Subsequently, she was a postdoctoral fellow for the CDC Climate and Health Program, and in this position worked collaboratively with the CDC Division of Vector-borne Diseases and the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Her research focuses on understanding the health impacts of climate change and working with communities to develop locally-relevant adaptation and resilience-building strategies. Dr. Hahn is also on the Management Team of the Alaska Climate Adaptation Science Center.
Michael is a former Founding Principal of Resilient Cities Catalyst, a global non-profit helping cities and their partners tackle their toughest challenges. He is currently the Executive Director of Climate Resilience Academy at the University of Miami.
Dr. Quintus Jett is a consultant, educator, and strategist for public causes. He has a doctorate in Organizations & Management from Stanford University, and a two-decade faculty career which spans schools, departments, and programs of business, engineering, liberal studies, divinity, and public and nonprofit management. Following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Dr. Jett launched a volunteer project in New Orleans, which enlisted residents, students from over a dozen colleges and universities, and hundreds of others to field map the city’s Gentilly district, Lower Ninth Ward, and New Orleans East. Dr. Jett is an innovator in higher education, bridging the divide between academic research and the other priorities of the modern university, including student access and diversity, community engagement, and providing foundations for life-long learning in today’s rapidly changing world.
Scott is Monfort Professor of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University. He has written about 100 publications in the peer-reviewed climate literature, is a former editor of the Journal of Climate, and served for five years as founding Science Chair of the North American Carbon Program.
Linda has many years of experience in disaster preparedness and resilience. She has been an elected official on the Linn County Iowa Board of Supervisors, Chair of the Metropolitan Planning Organization, the East Central Iowa Council of Governments, the statewide Mental Health Developmental Disability and the Linn County Board of Health. Langston is a former president of the National Association of Counties (2013-2014).
Ken works with families and organizations as a mediator, organizational consultant, trainer and facilitator. Along with his passion for helping people prepare for and reduce climate change, Ken also volunteers as a mediator through Mediation Works and is passionate about supporting youth through mentoring with Boys to Men of Southern Oregon.
Matthew is a retired high school teacher who was once honored as Oregon High School Social Studies Teacher of the Year. Before his teaching career he was in the restaurant business in Portland. He is also a lawyer who has been a member of the Oregon State Bar Association since 1980.
Andrea is the Resilience Policy Advisor for the North Carolina Office of Recovery and Resiliency. She works across state agencies and with local governments to increase the state’s resilience to the impacts of climate change.