Program: Tongass Rainforest

Geos Institute and conservation groups called on the Forest Service to properly analyze and reduce carbon emissions from logging in roadless areas on the Tongass National Forest, southeast Alaska, a globally significant carbon warehouse.

Read the Supplemental Comment on Alaska Roadless Rule Draft EIS Concerning New Information on Tongass National Forest Carbon Sink

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.

Young growth timber harvest can sustain timber industry, environmentalist says — others aren’t so sure

By Peter Segall, Originally published December 22, 2019 at the Juneau Empire

A recently released mapping project seeks to show the importance of the Tongass National Forest not necessarily in terms of fishing, tourism or dollars but in carbon.

The Oregon-based Geos Institute published an analysis of the Tongass on Dec. 16, and it highlights the importance of the National Forest as a “carbon sink,” which the report says has global climate implications.

“The Tongass is part of a global network of temperate rainforests that make up ~2.5% of the world’s total forest coverage,” the report says. “But these rainforests have exceptional carbon stores for their relatively small spatial extent and are critically important in climate regulation collectively and individually.”

EarthJustice submitted comments to the USDA Forest Service, Alaska Region on December 18, 2019 on behalf  of Geos Institute, Alaska Wilderness League, National Wildlife Federation, Audubon Alaska, Alaska Rainforest Defenders, Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network, Center for Biological Diversity, Defenders of Wildlife, Natural Resources Defense Council, The Wilderness Society, Center for Large Landscape Conservation, Sierra Club, and Southeast Alaska Conservation Council.

• Read the DEIS comments
• Read the Conservation Significance of Large Inventoried Roadless Areas on the Tongass National Forest compiled report

Geos Institute and partners have released three fact sheets available for download.

• Primary Temperate Forests
  • Primary Temperate Forest references
• Primary Tropical Forests
  • Primary Tropical Forest references
• Primary Boreal Forests
  • Primary Tropical Boreal Forest references

Read the open access article on SpringerLink

For immediate release December 16, 2019

Contacts: Dr. Dominick A. DellaSala, Chief Scientist, Geos Institute, Ashland, OR; dominick@geosinstitute.org; 541-621-7223; Dr. Brian Buma, Assistant Professor, University of Colorado, Denver; brian.buma@ucdenver.edu; 303-315-7677

Ashland, OR – A new analysis of roadless area values on the Tongass National Forest, southeast Alaska, documents the enormous amount of carbon stored in the Tongass old-growth rainforest as key to Alaska’s climate future but at-risk to development by the Trump Administration’s proposed rollback of 9.2 million acres of roadless protections.

With mapping help from Audubon Alaska and funding from The Wilderness Society, researchers mapped carbon data obtained from the Forest Inventory and Analysis program of the US Forest Service, the USFS Pacific Northwest Research Station, and other published sources across the Tongass. The team then distilled that information for areas currently conserved by the Roadless Rule the Trump Administration is seeking to overturn in Alaska. Researchers report exceptionally high carbon density for the Tongass rainforest on par with temperate rainforests in Chile and Tasmania, the world’s most carbon dense terrestrial carbon sinks.

“At a time when thousands of scientists have sounded the alarm that the world is in a state of emergency from escalating climate disruptions and mass global extinctions of both plants and animals, the Trump Administration is opening up America’s carbon-version of Amazonia,” said lead author, Dr. Dominick DellaSala, Chief Scientist, Geos Institute.

Dr. Brian Buma, University of Colorado, added “The Tongass is a unique national environmental treasure, integral to our national carbon balance. It is far more valuable as a carbon storehouse and on carbon markets than in its timber, which is slow growing, remote, and expensive to access relative to other parts of the country. It is irreplaceable and takes centuries to recover when harvested. Extraction is short sighted and economic development should take more creative lines, like carbon marketing and tourism.”

The report was sent to the Forest Service – along with a letter signed by 234 prominent scientists – requesting that the agency suspend efforts to lift roadless protections.

The report summarized unique national and global values at risk, including:

• The Tongass is part of a global network of temperate rainforests that make up ~2.5% of the world’s total forest coverage but that store a disproportionate amount of carbon critically important in climate regulation.
• The Tongass is one of only 4 other temperate rainforests world-wide that is still largely intact, which is crucial for hundreds of fish and wildlife species seeking refuge from Alaska’s extreme climate impacts.
• The Tongass occurs within the Pacific Coastal Temperate Rainforest bioregion (Coast Redwoods to Alaska) that collectively comprise over one-third of the world’s entire temperate rainforest biome.
• Carbon stored in Tongass roadless areas has an estimated value of $234 million to $2.2 billion depending on offset markets and amount of logging in the next 100 years.  Notably, Sealaska Native Corporation in southeast Alaska recently sold >$100 million of carbon offset credits to help BP offset 11 million metric tons of carbon emissions ($12 per ton of carbon; equivalent to offsetting 2.4 million car emissions in a year).
• The Tongass may function as a climate refuge for species facing more extreme climatic conditions in the interior of Alaska and coastal rainforests further south if managed to protect old-growth forests and roadless areas.

“Carbon dioxide emissions are insidious and cumulative – we cannot see their immediate effects – but everyone on the planet – especially future generations – will eventually be affected severely by the unprecedented accumulation of fossil fuel emissions globally, deforestation in the tropics, and development of Tongass roadless areas unless we cut all emissions drastically,” said DellaSala. “This is Alaska’s best and final shot at preparing for climate change but the Forest Service has completely undervalued the climate importance of Tongass roadless areas and is squandering it away to developers.”

Here are the values provided to the Forest Service by Audubon Alaska mapping and US Forest Service datasets.

                                                          ##

By Bobby Magill, originally published December 9, 2019 at Bloomberg Environment

Deep within the Tongass National Forest, the rain was just heavy enough to need an umbrella—and to wash away a light dusting of snow coating the mountains above Juneau, Alaska.

The low that mid-November morning was 38 degrees, 10 degrees above normal. That’s been the new normal in Alaska’s warmest year on record, slowing the salmon runs in what should be icy streams and killing an estimated 600,000 acres of towering yellow cedar trees.

“See all this rain? We should be having snow,” said Kenneth Weitzel, a natural resources specialist with the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, who’d just returned from a float-plane trip into the Tongass to collect water samples from streams. “Less snow, more rain—that’s the regime we’re changing into now.”

By Emily Kwong for NPR’s Short Wave, October 23, 2019

The Trump administration is seeking to lift federal protections on the Tongass National Forest in Alaska, paving the way for possible timber harvests and road construction in the largest national forest in the U.S.

Last week, the U.S. Forest Service, part of the Department of Agriculture, called for the Tongass to be fully exempted from the Roadless Rule, a 2001 policy passed in the waning days of the Clinton administration.

The rule has long prohibited development on 9.2 million acres of inventoried roadless areas in the Tongass. The Forest Service’s proposal, if approved by the Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue, would eliminate that rule for the Tongass and convert 165,000 acres of old-growth and 20,000 acres of young-growth to suitable timber lands.

By Adam Aton, Originally published by E&E News Tuesday, October 22, 2019

The Trump administration says the Tongass National Forest is America’s best carbon warehouse — so it’s fine to increase logging there.

The Forest Service last week released a draft environmental impact statement for building new roads through the Tongass, a precondition for feeding more old-growth trees into southeastern Alaska’s struggling timber mills. Every 21st-century president has fought over whether to expand or curtail logging in the massive forest. Trump has gone the furthest; his Forest Service last week said the time had come for a final resolution and recommended opening almost the entire area to development.

At stake is the country’s largest forest. The Tongass is among the world’s best carbon sinks, and it’s one of the largest unfragmented ecosystems in North America. Its trees hold about 650 million tons of carbon, which roughly converts to half of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions in 2017.

The old-growth rainforest is a major North American carbon sink. The Trump administration is moving to lift a Clinton-era ban on logging there. 

By Sabrina Shankman

Originally published Oct 16, 2019 at InsideClimate News

The Trump Administration wants to allow logging in previously off-limit areas of Alaska’s Tongass National Forest, the U.S. Forest Service announced Tuesday, a move that could turn one of the nation’s largest carbon sinks into a source of new climate-changing emissions.

The old-growth temperate rainforest contains trees that are centuries old and play a crucial role in storing carbon. In a state that is synonymous with oil production, the Tongass National Forest represents the potential for natural solutions to help combat the climate crisis. 

A 9.4-million acre swath of the Tongass has been protected under a Clinton-era requirement called the Roadless Rule, which safeguarded 58 million acres of undeveloped national forest lands from roadbuilding, logging and mineral leasing. But the Tongass has long been an area of hot dispute.

The Forest Service is now moving to exempt the rainforest — and make tens of thousands of old-growth acres available to logging.

Media Advisory

October 16, 2019
Contact: Dominick DellaSala, dominick@geosinstitute.org; 541-621-7223

Re: Scientists Call on Forest Service to Uphold Roadless Protections on Tongass rainforest, southeast Alaska

Ashland, OR – 234 scientists joined a growing chorus of public opposition to the recently announced[1] Trump Administration’s plans to open up over 9.4 million acres of pristine roadless areas to road construction, logging, and mining on the Tongass rainforest in Alaska.

At 16.8 million acres, the Tongass is the premier national forest within the 131 national forest system. Towering old-growth rainforests soak up the equivalent of at least 8% of all the carbon stored in national forests, while the Tongass’ roadless areas represent 16% of all undeveloped areas within the entire national forest system. Free of development, these forests allow all five species of Pacific salmon to replenish; abundant deer, wolves, bears and other wildlife find sanctuary in them. The region’s thriving subsistence and fishery-based economies depends on old-growth forests and roadless areas remaining intact. The economic value of carbon stored in Tongass old-growth forests also may exceed timber in developing carbon offset markets[2].

According to Dr Dominick A. DellaSala, Chief Scientist, Geos Institute, the Tongass is one of the world’s last relatively intact temperate rainforests that is serving as North America’s “lungs,” soaking up vast quantities of carbon dioxide pollution from unprecedented burning of fossil fuels and global deforestation. Opening up these rainforests to developers is an international crisis that will bring global attention to the region not unlike what has happened in Amazonia.”

Alaska is experiencing one of the fastest rates of climate change in the nation[3], evident in retreating glaciers, melting permafrost, and displacement of native Alaskan villages.

The scientist letter concludes that the Trump administration must recognize that undermining the Roadless Rule in Alaska will only prove divisive, reversing a multi-stakeholder agreement[4] finalized during the Obama administration to protect roadless areas while rapidly transitioning the Alaska timber industry out of old-growth logging and into a newly emerging supply of young trees that can begin sustaining wood volume needs without destroying the rainforest.

[1]https://www.usda.gov/media/press-releases/2019/10/15/usda-forest-service-seeks-public-comment-draft-environmental-impact
[2]https://www.researchgate.net/publication/225169208_Effects_of_Management_on_Carbon_Sequestration_in_Forest_Biomass_in_Southeast_Alaska
[3]https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/science/2018/11/24/alaska-experiencing-some-of-the-most-extreme-climate-changes-in-the-united-states-says-new-report/
[4]https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/tongass/home/?cid=stelprdb5444388

State, industry eye cache of rare earth elements under Bokan Mountain in Tongass National Forest

By Paul Koberstein and Jessica Applegate

The Pacific Coastal Temperate Rainforest, stretching from Northern California into Alaska, is known best for things that grow above the ground — like the world’s tallest trees, and in its waters, like the legendary salmon runs. But we know far less about treasures lurking underground, like the vein of rare earth elements tucked away deep within Alaska’s Tongass National Forest – America’s largest national forest.

This cache of highly valued minerals is buried under Bokan Mountain, a small peak at the remote southern tip of Prince of Wales Island, the southernmost island in the Southeast Alaskan archipelago and the fourth largest island in the United States.

Ucore Rare Metals Inc., a Nova Scotia-based company, owns the rights to build a mine at the site. In a recent letter to Uncore shareholders, the company’s president and CEO Jim McKenzie, says it has located 5.3 million tons of “the most valuable, sought after, strategically important, and hard-to-obtain” varieties of rare earths in Bokan. That makes it one of the largest lodes of rare earth elements ever found in the United States, according to the US Geological Survey.

Continue Reading at Earth Island Journal

By Marc Heller, E&E News reporter

HOONAH, Alaska — If young-growth timber catches on in the Tongass National Forest, people like Wes Tyler may lead the way.

The owner of Icy Straits Lumber and Milling Co., in the city of Hoonah (population 776) on Chichagof Island, Tyler has built a business making log cabins, pavilions, tabletops and other furniture.

Logs he’s harvested from the Tongass have built the Icy Straits Fish Cannery in Hoonah, Valley Medical Care clinic in Juneau and Forest Service Research Lab at the University of Alaska, Southeast.

Mills like Tyler’s show the potential for a young-growth industry in Alaska, said Catherine Mater, a forest products engineer from Oregon who visits Alaska regularly.

By Marc Heller, E&E News reporter

PRINCE OF WALES ISLAND, Alaska — Thousands of acres in southeast Alaska is ready for a second wave of logging, but is the timber industry ready to cut it?

That question lurks in the background as the Forest Service and political leaders face a series of decisions that will shape the future of the Tongass National Forest, one of the world’s last intact temperate rainforests and the biggest national forest in the United States.

A recent inventory of young growth in the nearly 17-million-acre Tongass shows enough supply to replace what the Forest Service harvests from old-growth forests, but officials and timber companies still say a full transition to a young-growth industry is 20 years or more away.

US Forest Service’s multiple plans to log vast swathes of Tongass National Forest faces stiff opposition

By Paul Koberstein & Jessica Applegate
Originally published October 7, 2019 at Earth Island Journal

DURING THE LAST HALF of the twentieth century, loggers cut down a hefty slice of old-growth forest blanketing Prince of Wales island, the fourth largest island in the United States located at the southern end of Alaska’s massive Tongass National Forest. And now the Trump administration is coming back for the rest.

The US Forest Service plans to roll back protections on the most pristine parts of the national forest and chop down another quarter million acres of the island’s old growth forest — generally, trees more than 150 years old. Old-growth timber is often favored over younger timber because of its more attractive appearance, but cutting it down threatens the island’s wildlife and the subsistence lifestyles that depend on it.

Continue reading at Earth Island Journal

Also published at Truthout

By Dominick A. DellaSala  
Originally published 9/11/2019 at the Anchorage Daily News

In response to former Gov. Frank Murkowski’s Sept. 6 op-ed calling for a full exemption of the Tongass National Forest from roadless protections, its remarkable how much has changed since he was governor. Instead of regressing to the heyday of rampant old-growth logging, no longer acceptable in Alaska or the nation, there is a path forward that reduces controversy, sustains jobs, saves roadless areas and slows down climate chaos by transitioning to young-growth forests. And as far as access issues he is concerned about, the Forest Service already has exercised its discretion to approve 67 projects in roadless areas that involved tree removal and/or road construction. So, the Trump Administration’s roadless rollbacks is completely unnecessary.

There is a better way forward to avoid the kind of global outrage now directed at massive logging in Amazonia, as both the Amazon and the Tongass play vital roles in slowing down runaway climate chaos as the planet’s “lungs.”

By Catherine M. Mater and Dominick A. DellaSala

Opinion article published August 29, 2019 in the Juneau Empire

A perfect storm is brewing in Southeast Alaska and all weather vanes are pointing to the Tongass National Forest — the “Amazon” of America that serves as lungs of the nation by absorbing and storing the equivalent of almost 10 percent of all the carbon retained in U.S. forests. Alaska has been in the national news with coverage of dried-up salmon spawning grounds due to unprecedented drought, and dwindling deer populations from logging old growth on Prince of Wales Island; all while the White House and Alaskan officials double down on eliminating protections for Alaska’s roadless old growth stands.

Understanding the connection between the Tongass, continued timber production, climate change and the real need for creating economic development in the state has never been more urgent. But these seemingly disparate silos offer a comprehensive solution.

While the state’s forest products industry that relies on old growth timber has sharply declined, a new one is emerging focused on transitioning out of old growth logging to reliance on Tongass young growth — 55-75-year-old trees — timber supply.

Dominick DellaSala took some time to talk with Rick Ungar about the Tongass and the president’s proposal to open the forest up for more logging. Listen to the segment here. 

Dunleavy and federal government want to repeal forest protections

By Michael S. Lockett, Originally published August 29, 2019 at the Juneau Empire

The Tongass National Forest is the largest national forest in the United States, at roughly 16 million acres, or slightly more area than West Virginia. It’s also one of the largest remaining temperate rainforests in the world, protected by rules prohibiting logging.

But Gov. Mike Dunleavy and the Trump administration reportedly want to change that.

“Our general belief is if the Trump administration is moving in this direction, we think it’s very much appropriate,” said Dunleavy’s spokesperson, Matt Shuckerow, in a telephone interview. “Without timber in the United States, I don’t know how we build a home, how to build construction.”

A report by the Washington Post indicated sources within the Trump administration confirmed the president’s desire to roll back protections called the “Roadless Rule,” which exempts more than 9 million acres of Tongass from development. Nearly 6 million further acres are designated as wilderness, barring them from development in perpetuity. 

By Juliet Eilperin and Josh Dawsey. Originally published August 27 at the Washington Post

President Trump has instructed Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue to exempt Alaska’s 16.7-million-acre Tongass National Forest from logging restrictions imposed nearly 20 years ago, according to three people briefed on the issue, after privately discussing the matter with the state’s governor aboard Air Force One.

The move would affect more than half of the world’s largest intact temperate rainforest, opening it to potential logging, energy and mining projects. It would undercut a sweeping Clinton administration policy known as the “roadless rule,” which has survived a decades-long legal assault.

Trump has taken a personal interest in “forest management,” a term he told a group of lawmakers last year he has “redefined” since taking office.

By Marc Heller, originally published on August 22, 2019 at E&E News

More than 100 people who operate commercial fishing boats in southeast Alaska urged the Trump administration not to ease limits on logging in roadless areas of the Tongass National Forest, saying opening those areas could negatively affect salmon.

In a letter sent to Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue and Forest Service Chief Vicki Christiansen yesterday, the fishing operators asked officials to delay releasing a draft environmental impact statement on the proposed Alaska roadless rule until October, citing the industry’s busy summer season.

“We depend on the forest, we are important stakeholders, and in the summer we are fully engaged in earning a living. If the comment period occurs during the summer months, we will effectively be precluded from participating,” they said.

In addition, they asked for a roadless rule that “prioritizes protecting and sustaining the Southeast salmon resource and its habitat in perpetuity.” That would include phasing out old growth, clear-cut timber practices, they said.

By Marc Heller, Published August 19, 2019 at E&E News

CRAIG, Alaska — A dwindling deer population is about to become a flashpoint in the debate over easing logging restrictions in the nation’s largest national forest.

Conservationists and Alaska Native tribes say deer — a big part of tribes’ diets — are in decline on Prince of Wales Island in the Tongass National Forest due to past timber industry practices. They plan to make that a rallying cry in uniting tribes against the Trump administration’s proposal to ease limits on logging in roadless areas of the national forest.

“Our deer suffer from logging,” said Clinton Cook Sr., president of the Craig Tribal Council, representing a community of about 400 people. Past clear-cutting created open landscapes where trees regenerated so thickly that deer can’t navigate the woods, a condition called stem exclusion that affects as much as million acres of forest around tribal lands, tribal officials said in an interview at their offices.

By Marc Heller, E&E News reporter 

Originally published at E&E News on Friday, August 16, 2019

KETCHIKAN, Alaska — The Trump administration’s trade war with China is hitting Alaska’s timber industry where it may hurt most: in the younger trees that everyone seems to agree are the future of the business.

China’s 20% tariff on U.S. timber is retaliation for similar levies the administration placed on Chinese goods. And while Chinese officials spoke earlier this week of trying to reach a middle ground in the broader trade battle, people close to the timber industry in southeast Alaska say they’re not sure the region’s mills that ship there can quickly recover when the battle settles.

That could throw off plans to transition out of old-growth timber harvesting in the Tongass National Forest, a practice that’s unpopular with conservation and environmental groups, as well as Alaska Native tribes, but maintains support from the state’s political leaders.

By Marc Heller, originally published Friday, August 16, 2019 at E&E News

KETCHIKAN, Alaska — The Trump administration’s trade war with China is hitting Alaska’s timber industry where it may hurt most: in the younger trees that everyone seems to agree are the future of the business.

China’s 20% tariff on U.S. timber is retaliation for similar levies the administration placed on Chinese goods. And while Chinese officials spoke earlier this week of trying to reach a middle ground in the broader trade battle, people close to the timber industry in southeast Alaska say they’re not sure the region’s mills that ship there can quickly recover when the battle settles.

That could throw off plans to transition out of old-growth timber harvesting in the Tongass National Forest, a practice that’s unpopular with conservation and environmental groups, as well as Alaska Native tribes, but maintains support from the state’s political leaders.

Conservationist Dominick DellaSala asks can the Tongass save Alaska?

By Peter Segall, Originally published Friday, August 16, 2019 at The Juneau Empire

Can the Tongass save Alaska from climate chaos?

Dr. Dominick DellaSala, president and chief scientist at the Geos Institute in Ashland, Oregon, asked that question to the small audience of about two dozen gathered in the Mendenhall Valley Library Tuesday evening.

He speaking at at an event hosted by the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council about the role that old-growth forest like the Tongass National Forest can play in combating climate change.

Temperate rain forests like the Tongass soak up an incredible amount of carbon and play a pivotal role in keeping the planet’s temperature at sustainable levels. In answer to his own question, DellaSala said that the Tongass can play a part in saving Alaska from climate chaos, so long as it continues to exist in its present state.

That may be a problem as the Alaska’s logging industry is eager to get at the hundreds of thousands of acres of old-growth forest in Southeast. “Old-growth” forests are not simply forests with old trees, but forests with a complex array of features which create a unique ecosystem which have remained mostly undisturbed by humans.

Marc Heller, E&E News reporter

Originally published at E&E News Greenwire, Wednesday, August 14, 2019

KAKE, Alaska — To the 569 residents of this island community in the Tongass National Forest, picking blueberries may offer more promise in the long run than harvesting trees.

So when the Department of Agriculture announced last year that it would consider scrapping rules that protect stands of old-growth forest, they demanded meetings with the agency.

“We said we wanted to be consulted,” said Mike Jackson, a leader with the Organized Village of Kake (OVK), in the tribal offices adorned with Native carvings and paintings. The OVK is a federally recognized tribe and has lived here, 100 miles southeast of Juneau, for generations. The Alaska Natives have seen the forests cut over in decades past.

“This is a huge decision to be making,” he said. “They’re just rolling with it.”

The tension between the Organized Village of Kake and USDA is part of a broader negative reaction in southeast Alaska to the department’s proposal to rewrite rules that protect roadless areas of the Tongass from timber harvest.

By Marc Heller, E&E News reporter, Originally published at E&E News on July 26, 2019

The Forest Service is proposing to open an additional 1,144 acres of the Tongass National Forest to harvesting of young-growth timber, opening a debate about where the transition away from old-growth timber should be focused.

In a proposed amendment to the forest management plan for the Tongass — the nation’s biggest national forest at nearly 17 million acres — the agency said it would allow more harvesting of young growth on a landscape known as moderate-vulnerability karst, which is typically underlain by a soluble rock like limestone.

Moderate-vulnerability karst doesn’t have caves or sinkholes — which are typically found in high-vulnerability karst landscapes — and the Forest Service said those areas can handle management activities such as timber harvesting. In addition, the agency said, regulations have been written in an inconsistent way that would allow cutting of trees in those locations if they were old growth.

“Analysis of old-growth harvest on moderate vulnerability karst has demonstrated that the standards in place were sufficient to maintain the natural processes and productivity of karst lands. This amendment will align the standards for young-growth and old-growth harvest on moderate vulnerability karst,” the Forest Service said in a news release.

Pristine areas must protected from relentless development

Originally published May. 29, 2019 8:00 p.m.at the San Francisco Examiner

The 2018 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Alliance of World Scientists, and #Scientists4Future all warn that if we do not transition away from fossil fuels quickly, climate change will threaten civilization itself in the coming decades. Scientists are now saying that pristine areas, like roadless areas and unlogged forests, can buy us time as we transition to a carbon-free economy but only if protected from relentless development.

Unfortunately, the fate of millions of acres of roadless areas in Alaska and Utah is now at risk from the Trump administration’s efforts to upend one of the nation’s landmark conservation achievements – the Roadless Area Conservation Rule of 2000. This is coming at a time when we need every wild place to avoid an unprecedent global crisis of 1 million species extinctions, as the authoritative Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services recently warned.

Anyone in the Bay Area who cares about wild spaces ought to be alarmed by the pending extinction crisis and the administration’s efforts to usher in clearcut logging and road building in Alaska’s coastal temperate rainforests and Utah’s roadless forests. Here’s why.

The Tongass stores hundreds of millions, if not over a billion, tons of carbon, keeping the heat-trapping element out of the atmosphere.

Conservation scientist Dominick DellaSala of the Geos Institute knows all too well the importance of the Tongass for fighting climate change. “If you hug a big tree, you’re actually hugging a big stick of carbon that has been taking up and storing up carbon for centuries,” he says.

Scientists have long understood that logging old-growth forests triggers a cascade of negative effects on wildlife, eroding the biodiversity of places like the Tongass. More recently, DellaSala and research collaborators have shown that old-growth logging worsens climate change.

Click here to read the full article by Rebecca Bowe in the spring 2019 issue of Earthjustice magazine. 

Published November 20, 2018 (Part one of a series)

By Paul Koberstein and Jessica Applegate

Starting in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest, the Trump administration is proposing to eliminate long-standing rules protecting 50 million acres of ancient forests across the country from logging and roadbuilding, raising new alarms about the president’s disregard for the climate and wildlife.

Taxpayers, already spending billions to keep Alaska’s timber industry afloat, could end up paying even more. If Trump strips roadless protection from the Tongass, no National Forest is safe.

Keep reading at Cascadia Times

Published November 20, 2018 (Part one of a series)

By Paul Koberstein and Jessica Applegate

Starting in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest, the Trump administration is proposing to eliminate long-standing rules protecting 50 million acres of ancient forests across the country from logging and roadbuilding, raising new alarms about the president’s disregard for the climate and wildlife.

Taxpayers, already spending billions to keep Alaska’s timber industry afloat, could end up paying even more. If Trump strips roadless protection from the Tongass, no National Forest is safe.

Keep reading at Cascadia Times

By Adam Aton, E&E News reporter (Friday, October 19, 2018)

The Trump administration is one step closer to carving roads through one of the country’s biggest carbon sinks.

Earlier this week, comments closed on an industry-supported proposal that could reshape the Tongass National Forest, the country’s biggest stretch of woods. The federal plan is advancing as scientists say that forests will help determine what level of damage the world experiences from warming — bad to catastrophic.

Photo by Dominick DellaSala

The Forest Service proposal aims to build roads through the Tongass. But it’s more than a traffic question. Both sides see it as a precursor to logging more old-growth trees. And more broadly, conservationists say it illustrates the gap between what forests need to thrive and what this administration is giving them.

Contact: Dr. Dominick DellaSala (Dominick@geosinstitute.org; 541-621-7223)

Ashland, Oregon – over two hundred of the nation’s top conservation and natural resource scientists called on the Forest Service to suspend its efforts to rollback popular roadless area protections on over 9 million-acres of the nation’s most intact temperate rainforest in Alaska.

Considered the crown jewel of the national forest system, the 16.8 million-acre Tongass National Forest in southeast Alaska contains thousands of near shore islands, spectacular glaciated mountains, and towering spruce-hemlock forests. Roadless areas (>5,000-acre areas lacking development) are the ecological foundation to some of the world’s most prolific salmon runs that support fish-eating bears, eagles, and wolves along with a vibrant outdoor and recreation economy that supports far more jobs and generates more money for local communities than the region’s extraction industries. Tongass old-growth forests, which the Forest Service intends to log, store more carbon than any forest in the nation, which is key to Alaska’s ability to prepare for unprecedented climate change already well underway.

According to Dominick A. DellaSala, Chief Scientist, Geos Institute in Ashland, Oregon, and editor/author of Temperate and Boreal Forests of the World: Ecology and Conservation, “Forest Service would best serve the public by shifting timber supply to young forests where a wall-of-wood will soon be ready to support the timber industry, instead of a wall-of-opposition from the public concerned about the fate of rainforests.”

The Roadless Conservation Rule (2001) protects over 50 million acres of the nation’s last intact landscapes. At the time, over 1 million Americans provided comments in support of this landmark conservation achievement, including hundreds of scientists that wanted Tongass roadless areas to have national protections. The Tongass is unique in containing over 9 million roadless acres, which is over half this national forest and ~19% of the national total.

Retired Alaskan wildlife biologist, Matt Kirchhoff, noted “ancient cedars will be cut down and exported to the Far East, and ironically, the US Taxpayer will pay for it. It’s time to stop the madness. Protect the still intact roadless areas in America’s only temperate rainforest.”

Retired Alaskan wildlife ecologist and co-editor/author of North Pacific Temperate Rainforests, John Schoen added “the consensus of scientists, including two former Forest Service Chiefs (Mike Dombeck, Jack Ward Thomas) is the nation’s remaining old growth should be protected from developments. Excluding the Tongass from the national roadless protections will have an irreversible consequence to the vibrant fish and wildlife populations that depend on these areas in America’s largest national forest.”

The Forest Service is taking public comments, which closes October 15, and has a website with details on the Alaska proposal.

Media Coverage

• Roads into Alaska’s Tongass can affect climate (E&E News, October 19, 2018)

By Dominick DellaSala, John Schoen and John Talberth

Originally published by the Juneau Empire, August 14, 2018

Alaskans are blessed with some of the wildest, most biologically prolific forests on the planet. Nowhere else is this more evident than the Tongass rainforest, the crown jewel of the national forest system. Unfortunately, the State of Alaska announced plans to team up with the Trump Administration to open up millions of acres to logging and road-based developments. This ill-conceived proposal would degrade the region’s pristine character and the foundation of a robust outdoor economy.

The Roadless Conservation Rule of 2001 protected over 58 million acres of the nation’s most remote places. It was the premier conservation achievement of its time that took years of careful deliberation, an unprecedented number of public meetings, over 1 million strongly (more than 95 percent) supportive public comments, and the backing of hundreds of scientists, all of who wanted the Tongass included.

While the Roadless Rule protects intact areas larger than 5,000 acres from logging, it has numerous allowances to include road connections between communities and other state highway projects, access to mining claims under the Mining Law of 1872, and access to utility corridors and hydropower projects. Some 55 projects within roadless areas in Alaska have been rapidly approved by the Forest Service. The Roadless Rule there fore is working in Alaska and plans to gut it are misguided. 

By Dominick DellaSala, John Schoen and John Talberth

Originally published by the Juneau Empire, August 14, 2018

Alaskans are blessed with some of the wildest, most biologically prolific forests on the planet. Nowhere else is this more evident than the Tongass rainforest, the crown jewel of the national forest system. Unfortunately, the State of Alaska announced plans to team up with the Trump Administration to open up millions of acres to logging and road-based developments. This ill-conceived proposal would degrade the region’s pristine character and the foundation of a robust outdoor economy.

The Roadless Conservation Rule of 2001 protected over 58 million acres of the nation’s most remote places. It was the premier conservation achievement of its time that took years of careful deliberation, an unprecedented number of public meetings, over 1 million strongly (more than 95 percent) supportive public comments, and the backing of hundreds of scientists, all of who wanted the Tongass included.

While the Roadless Rule protects intact areas larger than 5,000 acres from logging, it has numerous allowances to include road connections between communities and other state highway projects, access to mining claims under the Mining Law of 1872, and access to utility corridors and hydropower projects. Some 55 projects within roadless areas in Alaska have been rapidly approved by the Forest Service. The Roadless Rule there fore is working in Alaska and plans to gut it are misguided. 

Read the April 11, 2018 article “Alaska’s transition away from old growth logging just got a big step closer” online at JuneauEmpire.com

Originally published March 15, 2018, available online at Seattle Times

There is no better place to experience old-growth forests than the Tongass and Chugach national forests. Here, all five species of Pacific salmon line up to spawn like rush-hour traffic, spruce and hemlock trees tower like skyscrapers, and bears and wolves still run free.

By Gordon Orians and Dominick A. DellaSala

The Tongass National Forest in Alaska, the crown jewel of our national forest system, is facing an unprecedented threat.

At the end of last year, U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, introduced two legislative budget riders aimed at allowing thousands of acres of pristine, roadless old-growth rain forest on the Tongass and the Chugach National Forest to be clear-cut.

We recently joined more than 220 of our fellow scientists from Alaska and across the country in sending a letter to Congress urging members to reject these backdoor efforts to undermine long-standing roadless and old-growth forest protections.

Originally published March 15, 2018, available online at Seattle Times

There is no better place to experience old-growth forests than the Tongass and Chugach national forests. Here, all five species of Pacific salmon line up to spawn like rush-hour traffic, spruce and hemlock trees tower like skyscrapers, and bears and wolves still run free.

By Gordon Orians and Dominick A. DellaSala

The Tongass National Forest in Alaska, the crown jewel of our national forest system, is facing an unprecedented threat.

At the end of last year, U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, introduced two legislative budget riders aimed at allowing thousands of acres of pristine, roadless old-growth rain forest on the Tongass and the Chugach National Forest to be clear-cut.

We recently joined more than 220 of our fellow scientists from Alaska and across the country in sending a letter to Congress urging members to reject these backdoor efforts to undermine long-standing roadless and old-growth forest protections.

Geos Institute is part of an international coalition dedicated to protecting the world’s last remaining primary (unlogged) and intact forest landscapes (forest legacies). We are on the steering committee and science committee for Intact: International Action for Primary Forests. You can learn about the climate, water quality, and biodiversity benefits of these remarkable forests by clcking here: www.primaryforest.org – our position is that the planet’s remaining primary (old growth) forests should be free of industrial activities. Read our statement and see the list of organizations that have already signed on.

Mater Engineering, Geos Institute, and NRDC young growth study reveals Tongass can transition out of old growth logging quickly.

View the summary of results of results (PDF)

By Kevin Gullufsen

Originally published January 28, 2018 05:58 am at the Juneau Empire

Tongass old growth, aquatic life put at stake by spending bill, they say

A group of 220 natural resource scientists urged Congress with a joint letter Friday not to eliminate the so-called “roadless rule” on Alaska’s Tongass and Chugach national forests.

The letter comes in response to two proposed changes U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, attached to an Interior Department spending bill in November that hasn’t yet passed. One provision exempts the Tongass and Chugach from prohibitions on road construction and timber harvesting in certain areas of the national forests.

Another section overturns protections in the Forest Service’s Tongass Management Plan for valuable old-growth timber. The plan instead charts a path toward logging younger tree stands.

Overturning these protections, the scientists write, would threaten salmon runs and the Tongass’ ability to store carbon and mitigate climate change.

By Marc Heller, E&E News reporter

Originally Published: Friday, January 26, 2018 at E&E News PM

More than 200 scientists urged Congress in a letter today to protect the Tongass National Forest in Alaska from increased logging of old-growth trees, an issue that’s in the background of budget negotiations in the Senate.

The 220 researchers, mainly from universities and nonprofit organizations, spoke out against proposals by Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) to exempt the Tongass and Chugach national forests from rules limiting road construction in national forests and to slow the Forest Service’s transition to younger-growth timber in the Tongass.

For Immediate Release January 26, 2018

Contact: Dr. Dominick A. DellaSala, Geos Institute, (541) 482-4459 x 302 or (541) 621-7223 cell, dominick@geosinstitute.org

ASHLAND, OR – 220 leading scientists, researchers, and university professors spoke out in unison today in support of protecting the Tongass National Forest from rollbacks to roadless area and old-growth forest protections proposed by Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski (attached letter).

Dr. Dominick A. DellaSala, Chief Scientist of the Ashland-based Geos Institute, author of “temperate and boreal rainforests of the world: ecology and conservation,” and co-author of the scientist letter, said “The Tongass is the crown jewel of the national forest system and one of the world’s last remaining intact temperate rainforests. Alaska is on the front lines of climate impacts from melting glaciers, rapid thawing of permafrost, and rising temperatures. It makes no sense to open up old growth logging wounds when the Forest Service can be transitioning to more climate friendly young forest logging.”

DellaSala added, When old-growth rainforests are cut down up to two-thirds of their stored carbon is released to the atmosphere as a global warming pollutant. Old-growth logging on the Tongass is estimated to release the carbon dioxide equivalent of adding over 2 million vehicles per year to Alaska’s climate impacts (See: https://geosinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/tongass-report-emissions-2016-01.pdf).

The Tongass is the only national forest still clearcutting old-growth forests. Most have moved on to logging smaller less controversial trees.

Click to read the letter

By Marc Heller, E&E News reporter

Originally Published: Friday, January 26, 2018, E&E Newswire

The old-growth timber industry’s fight for survival in Alaska may be complicating congressional efforts to reach a long-term solution to costly wildfires.

Senate aides and lobbyists told E&E News that Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s focus on protecting southeast Alaska’s shrinking old-growth timber business is one potential wrinkle as lawmakers balance environmental and forest industry interests in search of a compromise, possibly in a spending bill covering the rest of this fiscal year.

As the Republican chairwoman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and often a swing vote on issues in the Senate, Alaska’s senior senator is a key player in the wildfire and forest management debate. She told E&E News on Wednesday she’s still working toward including a wildfire measure in a broader bill but didn’t elaborate.

Marc Heller, E&E News reporter

Originally Published by E&E on Wednesday, December 6, 2017

A fight over road construction in the Tongass National Forest may flare up in spending negotiations.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) sponsored a provision in draft Senate appropriations legislation for Interior and related agencies that would exempt Alaska from federal rules that restrict building of roads in national forests.

Murkowski’s move against the “roadless rule” marks another line in a battle that’s been playing out, mainly in federal courts, since the Clinton administration handed down the regulations in 2001.

A U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia judge in September dismissed a lawsuit by Alaska seeking to overturn the rule.

Murkowski, chairwoman of the Interior and Environment Appropriations Subcommittee, is also pushing a provision that would slow the Forest Service’s transition from old-growth logging to young-growth logging in Tongass and Chugach national forests.

Clearcutting ancient trees in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest makes little sense—ecologically, climatically, even economically. So why is it so hard to stop?

“I am sensitive to the fact that these are rural communities where every job matters,” said Dominick DellaSala, president of Geos. “That’s why we said, ‘If you go this way, you get a wall of wood. If you go this way, you get a wall of litigation.’ We were trying to help.”

Keep reading the article by Sarah Gilman at bioGraphic

By Scott Streater

Reposted from E&E News on December 9, 2016

The Forest Service has formally approved a much-debated land-use plan amendment that calls for phasing out clearcutting of old-growth trees over a 16-year period in Tongass National Forest.

Some environmentalists criticized the move as not going far enough to protect the nation’s largest forest, while the timber industry is likely to object, as well.

Tongass National Forest Supervisor Earl Stewart has finalized a record of decision (ROD) that calls for shifting to young-growth trees in areas that have been previously logged in the nearly 17-million-acre forest in southeast Alaska, according to a notice published in yesterday’s Federal Register.

To avert the worst climate change impacts, old forests and their massive carbon reserves must be protected.

By Thomas E. Lovejoy

Originally published in High Country News on November 17, 2016

In Paris last December, the world turned a major corner on climate change. Some 195 nations agreed on the urgency of the threat. They also agreed to take steps to combat it, including promoting forest protection and reforestation — steps that are necessary, though not in themselves sufficient, if we are to avoid consequences as extreme for our economies and health as they are for the environment.

Tongass Second Growth Transition Project

At a Glance Summary (15 pages)

December 2016 Final Tongass Summary Presentation (91 pages)

A-G Final Exhibits

By Elizabeth Shogren

Twenty years ago on a beautiful November day, Robert Bonnie and Dominick DellaSala got an unexpected and unforgettable opportunity to play hooky. Both were working for environmental groups, Bonnie for the Environmental Defense Fund and DellaSala for the World Wildlife Fund. But when they arrived at Yellowstone National Park for a meeting about large carnivores, they learned that the park was closed and their meeting had been cancelled: The federal government had just shut down over a budget battle between President Bill Clinton and Congress. Somehow, they talked their way into the park anyway and hiked through Lamar Valley, peering through binoculars at newly reintroduced gray wolves and distant grizzlies and watching a peregrine falcon circle overhead.

Many years later, Bonnie recalled that adventure when he and DellaSala met at the Agriculture Department’s Washington, D.C., headquarters to discuss the fate of the Tongass National Forest in southeast Alaska, the nation’s largest national forest and the last where large-scale clear-cutting of old-growth trees is permitted. Bonnie, now the undersecretary of Agriculture who oversees the Forest Service, said that day had been one of the best of his life. DellaSala challenged Bonnie to top it by saving the Tongass. “That would be a conservation legacy,” DellaSala, 59, recalls.

Now, however, three years later, Bonnie and DellaSala are on opposite sides of a battle over climate change and the Tongass.

Objections to Tongass Forest Plan amendment start rolling in

by Aaron Bolton, (originally published in KSTK News)
August 3, 2016 6:00 am

The U.S. Forest Service announced its plan for a 16-year transition toward young-growth Tongass timber harvests in late June. In the midst of the 60-day comment period, industry and environmental groups are starting to submit their objections.

Both the industry and environmental groups on either side of the Tongass Land Management Plan amendment can agree on one thing: the Forest Service needs to complete a full inventory of young-growth Tongass timber.

But their reasons are fundamentally different.

The Tongass is one of the world’s last great temperate rainforests and is under threat of clearcut logging that will eliminate over 43,000 acres of old growth, mostly in the next 16 years. The logging plan is an embarrassment to President Obama’s climate change policies as it would lead to emissions equivalent of nearly 4 million vehicles annually. There is a better way to transition logging to previously logged and regrown forests that will help save Alaska’s rapidly changing climate and create sustainable timber jobs but only if President Obama steps in to direct the Forest Service’s rogue logging plan.

Read the full objection here in a letter sent July 27, 2016 to the USDA Forest Service

By Dominick DellaSala, Catherine Mater, and Jim Furnish

For The Register-Guard, July 16, 2016

The recent release of the U.S. Forest Service’s old growth logging plans for Alaska’s Tongass National Forest stalls urgent climate change protections and relies on old school forestry.

What happens in the Tongass is important to Oregonians, and the nation, because this national forest absorbs about 8 percent of the nation’s carbon dioxide pollution annually — far more than any other forest. And what is happening in the Siuslaw National Forest can inform the Tongass.

The Tongass plan calls for continued old growth logging, mostly over the next 16 years, threatening 43,000 acres of Tongass rainforest. This long time frame will unnecessarily release the equivalent emissions of 4 million vehicles annually over the next 100 years at a time when nations are looking to cut back on carbon pollution.

By Dominick DellaSala, Catherine Mater, and Jim Furnish

For The Register-Guard, July 16, 2016

The recent release of the U.S. Forest Service’s old growth logging plans for Alaska’s Tongass National Forest stalls urgent climate change protections and relies on old school forestry.

What happens in the Tongass is important to Oregonians, and the nation, because this national forest absorbs about 8 percent of the nation’s carbon dioxide pollution annually — far more than any other forest. And what is happening in the Siuslaw National Forest can inform the Tongass.

The Tongass plan calls for continued old growth logging, mostly over the next 16 years, threatening 43,000 acres of Tongass rainforest. This long time frame will unnecessarily release the equivalent emissions of 4 million vehicles annually over the next 100 years at a time when nations are looking to cut back on carbon pollution.

Scientific studies by Oregon-based organizations demonstrate that Tongass forests clearcut in the 1950s, which have since regrown as “second growth,” can meet timber demand while leaving old growth standing. In 2015, Mater Engineering Ltd. of Corvallis spearheaded the most intensive timber cruises ever conducted on the Tongass, focusing on 55-year-old second growth stands to meet timber targets of the Forest Service. The conclusion: By 2020, second growth levels reach wood supply levels not seen in southeast Alaska since the 1980s.

It makes dollars and sense to move quickly into second growth. The costs of carbon pollution from increased health and economic impacts would exceed timber revenues by a factor of at least 10 by mid-century. And second growth volume will come from low-controversy acres yielding much lower logging emissions than old growth logging while hastening logs to the mills.

This solution has been working in Oregon’s Siuslaw National Forest since the 1990s, when spotted owl protections prompted a quick transition to second growth not needed by the owl but necessary for an industrial transition. The Siuslaw’s exemplary vision is what’s needed now in Alaska.

But the Tongass logging plan blatantly contradicts U.S.-led efforts on the Paris Climate Change Agreement, which promotes measures to protect carbon stored in forests to help head off dangerous global temperature increases.

On the heels of news that global carbon dioxide levels have rapidly increased to levels that have not occurred for thousands of years, Oregon forest experts from the Geos Institute and Mater Engineering charge the Forest Service with relying on old school forestry that violates the Paris agreement. Nations are now working to store more carbon in trees while the Tongass leads by example with industrial clearcuts.

And just this month, Secretary of State John Kerry issued a joint statement with Norway’s environment minister: “The science is clear: conserving, restoring and sustainably managing the world’s natural forests is critical to achieving a safe, secure, and sustainable world.”

Fortunately, there is still time for the Tongass to embrace a swift transition that will benefit the timber industry while protecting the region’s world-class rainforests. President Obama needs to direct the Forest Service to speed up the transition as part of his climate change legacy. The Tongass needs to get with the climate change program, as other national forests already have, by following the Siuslaw example.

Dominick DellaSala is chief scientist of the Ashland-based Geos Institute and editor of Temperate and Boreal Rainforests of the World: Ecology and Conservation. Catherine Mater is president of Mater Engineering Ltd. Jim Furnish is retired deputy chief of the U.S. Forest Service and supervisor of the Siuslaw National Forest.

The Tongass National Forest is the nation’s carbon champion, storing about 8% of the nation’s annual global warming emissions in its productive old-growth rainforests. The Forest Service proposes to clearcut 43,000 acres of old growth, mostly in the next 16 years. Logging emissions would release the equivalent emissions of 4 million vehicles annually while squandering one of the world’s last relatively intact temperate rainforests.

• Letter to CEQ (Council on Environmental Quality), OMB (Office of Management and Budget), and the U.S. Department of State
• Press Release

Media Coverage

• Final EIS would end Tongass old-growth logging in 16 years, GreenWire article published July 5, 2016 (don’t have a subscription? You can read the article here)
• Forest Service announces changes to Tongass plan, Juneau Empire (June 30, 2016)
• TLMP amendment draft decision announced, KRBD radio (June 30, 2016)
• My Turn: Tongass logging transition doesn’t do enough for old growth or timber jobs, Juneau Empire (July 7, 2016)

For Immediate Release on June 30, 2016

– Tongass Logging Plan Ignores Fast Exit from Old-growth Logging

– Agency Relies on Old School Forestry Tactics

– Contradicts Secretary of State John Kerry’s and President Obama’s Climate Statements

Media Contact: Dominick DellaSala, GEOS Institute | Dominick@geosinstitute.org 541- 482-4459 x 302; 541-621-7223 (cell)

Ashland, OR – The release of the Forest Service’s old-growth logging plan (Final Environmental Impact Statement) for the Tongass National Forest stalls urgent climate change protections and runs counter to the Obama administration’s climate change directives. The plan contradicts the US-led Paris Climate Change Agreement that includes measures to protect vast amounts of carbon stored in forests to help head off dangerous global warming. The Forest Service’s plan calls for continued logging of old growth trees for another 16 years, which threatens 43,000 acres of Tongass old-growth rainforest. The unnecessarily long timeframe will release the equivalent emissions of 4 million vehicles annually over the next 100 years at a time when nations are looking to cut back on emissions.

The Tongass National Forest is the nation’s carbon champion, storing about 8% of the nation’s annual global warming emissions in its productive old-growth rainforests. The Forest Service proposes to clearcut 43,000 acres of old growth, mostly in the next 16 years. Logging emissions would release the equivalent emissions of 4 million vehicles annually while squandering one of the world’s last relatively intact temperate rainforests.

• Letter to CEQ (Council on Environmental Quality), OMB (Office of Management and Budget), and the U.S. Department of State
• Press Release

Media Coverage

• Final EIS would end Tongass old-growth logging in 16 years, GreenWire article published July 5, 2016 (don’t have a subscription? You can read the article here)
• Forest Service announces changes to Tongass plan, Juneau Empire (June 30, 2016)
• TLMP amendment draft decision announced, KRBD radio (June 30, 2016)
• My Turn: Tongass logging transition doesn’t do enough for old growth or timber jobs, Juneau Empire (July 7, 2016)

A new article “Opportunity in Crisis: How Second Growth Timber in Alaska Will Help” by Catherine M. Mater outlines the opportunity for a rebirth of a healthy forest products industry in Alaska that doesn’t depend on old growth logging. Read the full article here.

By Dominick A. DellaSala and Jim Furnish, for the Juneau Empire

Change is not for the risk averse. It is scary stuff that takes us out of our comfort zones and into the unknown.

It’s also how we adapt, meet challenges and improve outcomes for our communities and ourselves. People in Southeast Alaska know that better than most. Over the past quarter century, the region has been moving beyond boom-and-bust cycles of unsustainable resource extraction and export. Today, world-class, sustainably managed fisheries, tourism and recreation lead economic diversification that has replaced most old-growth logging.

The time is past due for the Forest Service to ride the change wave. In 2010, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack recognized that when he announced a transition away from logging old growth and roadless areas on the Tongass would help “communities stabilize and grow new jobs.” His Alaska Regional Forester agreed, saying that the Forest Service would transition “quickly.”

By Dominick A. DellaSala and Jim Furnish, for the Juneau Empire

Change is not for the risk averse. It is scary stuff that takes us out of our comfort zones and into the unknown.

It’s also how we adapt, meet challenges and improve outcomes for our communities and ourselves. People in Southeast Alaska know that better than most. Over the past quarter century, the region has been moving beyond boom-and-bust cycles of unsustainable resource extraction and export. Today, world-class, sustainably managed fisheries, tourism and recreation lead economic diversification that has replaced most old-growth logging.

The time is past due for the Forest Service to ride the change wave. In 2010, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack recognized that when he announced a transition away from logging old growth and roadless areas on the Tongass would help “communities stabilize and grow new jobs.” His Alaska Regional Forester agreed, saying that the Forest Service would transition “quickly.”

Reprinted with permission from E&E News
Amanda Reilly, E&E reporter
Published:  Wednesday, January 13, 2016

A draft management plan for Alaska’s Tongass National Forest could cause annual releases equivalent to 4 million cars’ worth of carbon dioxide emissions over the next century, warns a new study.

The study by the Geos Institute, a conservation nonprofit organization studying forest systems and climate change, cautions that the plan’s emissions would run counter to the recent international agreement to address climate change.

The Tongass National Forest unveiled the draft plan in November to shift the forest from predominantly old-growth logging to predominantly young-growth logging. A unanimous recommendation by the Tongass Advisory Committee, which is made up of the timber industry, conservation groups, Alaska Natives and local government, formed the basis for the plan (E&ENews PM, Nov. 20, 2015).

The author of the new report, Geos chief scientist Dominick DellaSala, said he set out to determine whether the plan for the 16.8-million-acre forest was consistent with the recent international climate deal crafted in Paris, as well as with the Obama administration’s own climate change policies.

The Geos Institute report, which used published estimates of carbon stored in the Tongass, takes issue with the Forest Service’s plan to continue to allow old-growth logging as it transitions to young-growth logging. The plan calls for a transition period because of concerns about the salability of young growth.

Tongass Forest Supervisor Earl Stewart said that the changes would make the Tongass forest management program “more ecologically, socially and economically sustainable.”

But along with warning that the draft plan undermines the Paris climate agreement, the report from the Geos Institute says that the plan also runs counter to draft guidelines from the Council on Environmental Quality directing agencies to limit carbon dioxide emissions. The plan would release emissions that are 175 times higher than the CEQ guidelines, according to the report.

Geos used the report to push for a conservation alternative to the draft plan that would accelerate the transition to young-growth logging.

“The Obama Administration is using a double standard of paying other countries not to destroy tropical rainforests, while logging the Tongass rainforest,” DellaSala said in a statement. “We need bold action to save the Tongass and its climate now, not baby steps that drag transition through years of controversial old-growth logging in one of the world’s most important temperate rainforests.”

For Immediate Release on January 11, 2016

Contacts: Dominick A. DellaSala: 541-621-7223 (cell); Jim Furnish: 240-271-1650

Ashland, OR – a logging plan on the Tongass National Forest in southeast Alaska conflicts with President Obama’s commitments to the Paris climate change agreements reached in December. 

In November, the U.S. Forest Service issued a Draft Environmental Impact Statement to transition the Tongass out of old-growth logging but the agency plans to continue logging carbon-rich, old-growth rainforests as it slowly transitions logging to younger trees.

When rainforests are logged, most of the carbon stored in dense foliage, old trees, and soils is emitted as carbon dioxide pollution, the main culprit in heating the planet. A new report by the Ashland-based Geos Institute, a climate change organization, shows proposed would release global warming pollution equivalent to the emissions from 4 million vehicles annually at a time when the nation is striving to cut emissions.

Geos Institute released a new report demonstrating the importance of the Tongass rainforest in southeast Alaska as the State’s first line of climate change defense. Old-growth rainforests on the Tongass store more atmospheric carbon than any national forest in the country and therefore act as a carbon “sink.” The recent Paris climate change agreements called on nations to enhance and maintain forests as a carbon sink. Continued logging on the Tongass releases greenhouse gas emissions that will further place at risk Alaska’s climate and world-class wildlife and fisheries.

• Emissions calculations
• Alaska Public Media: Environmentalists say Tongass plan doesn’t act fast enough (Jan 2016)
• KTOO article about the Tongass as a climate refuge (Aug 2015)
• KTOO article says second growth logging in the Tongass can start now (Oct 2014)

Geos Institute released a new report demonstrating the importance of the Tongass rainforest in southeast Alaska as the State’s first line of climate change defense. Old-growth rainforests on the Tongass store more atmospheric carbon than any national forest in the country and therefore act as a carbon “sink.” The recent Paris climate change agreements called on nations to enhance and maintain forests as a carbon sink. Continued logging on the Tongass releases greenhouse gas emissions that will further place at risk Alaska’s climate and world-class wildlife and fisheries.

• Emissions calculations
• KTOO article about the Tongass as a climate refuge
• KTOO – Juneau: Environmentalists say Tongass plan doesn’t act fast enough

Only about one-third of the world’s forests remain as intact primary forests with no roads or logging having taken place. Scientists have long recognized the unique values these forests provide including unmatched biodiversity, clean water, and, more recently, climate benefits. Geos Institute was part of an international team of scientists and conservation groups calling on countries, including the USA, to protect their dwindling primary forests as part of the historic climate change agreements negotiated this December in Paris.

Read the full article.

Tongass rainforest – primary temperate rainforests on the Tongass National Forest in southeast Alaska sequester (absorb) the equivalent of about 8% of the annual US greenhouse gas emissions. No other forest in the nation sequesters and stores more carbon. Geos Institute works to preserve these rainforests for their climate and biodiversity benefits.	Tropical rainforest, Australia – tropical rainforests are a global carbon “sink,” absorbing atmospheric carbon through photosynthesis and storing it in long-lived trees, dense foliage, and soils. Geos Institute is a member of the steering committee of “IntAct,” an international effort to protect the world’s primary forests. Photo credit: Dominick DellaSala

Seven of the nation’s top scientific societies and 200 distinguished climate and natural resource scientists are urging the USDA and the Obama Administration to speed up its transition out of old-growth logging on the Tongass National Forest. The large trees, productive soils, and dense foliage on the Tongass store ten times more carbon than any other national forest. When these rainforests are logged, most of the stored carbon is released as carbon dioxide pollution, contributing to global warming in Alaska and worldwide.

According to Dominick DellaSala, “Quickly transitioning the Tongass rainforest out of clearcutting old-growth forests would bring certainty to the timber industry and secure the legacy of rainforest benefits for the American people.

Press Release:

• Scientists ask President Obama to save Tongass Rainforest

A 2014 study of second growth timber on the Tongass National Forest in southeast Alaska shows that the U.S. Forest Service can transition out of old growth logging in 5 years, and shift timber sales into young growth located in previously logged and roaded areas.

As Dominick DellaSala stated, “We have a once-in-a lifetime opportunity to stop the needless logging of old growth in one of the world’s last relatively intact rainforests, with the added benefit of keeping carbon in the forest and out of the atmosphere.”

Press Releases:

• Phase Out of Tongass Old-Growth Logging Can Begin Immediately – June 25, 2014
• Phase Out of Tongass Old-Growth Logging Can Begin Now If the Forest Service Acts Swiftly – August 25, 2014

Contact: Dominick DellaSala (541/621-7223; dominick@geosinstitute.org)

Ashland, OR – Alaska’s Tongass rainforest may fair better in a changing climate than more southerly rainforest locales, according to a new study published in an online reference module “Earth Systems and Environmental Sciences” by Elsevier, a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services.

The release of the study coincides with President Barack Obama’s visit with the Arctic Council in Anchorage in advance of the United Nations climate talks. It follows a letter sent in April 2015 to the White House by hundreds of scientists calling on President Obama to speed the transition out of old-growth logging on the Tongass to preserve the rainforest’s unique climate and wildlife benefits.

For Immediate Release on February 26, 2015

Contact: Dominick A. DellaSala, Ph.D.; Cell: 541-621-7223

Ashland, Oregon – International climate change and rainforest experts warned that without drastic and immediate cuts to greenhouse gas emissions and new forest protections, the world’s most expansive stretch of temperate rainforests from Alaska to the coast redwoods will experience irreparable losses.  

Using global climate models, researchers assessed changes in temperature and precipitation from recent to future climatic conditions projected toward the end of the century if emissions from burning fossil fuels and deforestation continue to rise.

For immediate release on January 20, 2015

Contact: Dominick DellaSala, Chief Scientist and President; 541.482.4459 x302; 541.621.7223 (cell); dominick@geosinstitute.org

Ashland, Oregon- Seven of the nation’s top scientific societies have joined over 200 distinguished climate and natural resource scientists to urge the Obama Administration to speed up its transition out of old-growth logging on the Tongass National Forest in southeast Alaska.

USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack announced in July 2013 that a transition out of old-growth logging and into logging second growth (forests originally logged in the 1950s that have since reforested) would commence over time. The Forest Service is amending the Tongass National Forest Land Management Plan, with a draft due this August. Unfortunately, the agency continues to support controversial old-growth sales at levels not seen since the early 1990s, despite independent analyses showing second growth will soon be available to replace old growth timber.

The scientific societies calling for an end to old-growth logging on the Tongass National Forest (the only national forest still clearcutting old growth) include the American Fisheries Society, American Ornithologists Union, American Society of Mammalogists, Ecological Society of America, Pacific Seabird Group, Society for Conservation Biology, and The Wildlife Society.

Juneau Empire Opinion:

Logging in Southeast Alaska’s Tongass National Forest is an industry that faltered many times before getting off the ground. Yet once it did, it took off with the momentum of a steam engine and with support from all over the state.

by Dominick DellaSala for the Juneau Empire

Like many who care about Alaska’s economy and its world-class rainforests, I witnessed the recent news coverage on the Big Thorne timber sale as the latest boxing match over old growth logging. Each prizefighter staked out familiar ground — conservationists sued over old growth logging, industry claimed the sky was falling and the Undersecretary of Agriculture assumed the referee position (“My Turn” in the Juneau Empire, Aug. 25).

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For Immediate Release on August 25, 2014

Contacts: Catherine Mater, Mater Ltd. (541-753-7335); Dominick DellaSala, Ph.D., Geos Institute (541-482-4459 x 302, 541-621-7223); Nathaniel Lawrence, Natural Resources Defense Council  (360-534-9900); Jim Furnish, Retired Siuslaw National Forest Supervisor (240-271-1650)

A recently released study of second growth availability on the Tongass rainforest questions the assumptions made by the Forest Service that they need to log old-growth rainforests for ten or more years until second growth is ready. The Forest Service announced in May that it was transitioning timber sales from old growth to second growth but expected another 10 to 15 years of old growth logging that has proven controversial. This new study shows that transition can begin immediately and finish up in no more than 5 years, shifting logging to previously logged and roaded second growth areas outside of sensitive resource lands.

A 2014 study update commissioned by the Ashland-Oregon based Geos Institute and Natural Resources Defense Council used recent Forest Service timber data to conclusively show that the agency has immediate access to supplies of second growth similar to trees already being logged on private lands in southeast Alaska. A preliminary study conducted by Oregon-based Mater Ltd. released in 2013 used prior Forest Service and Tongass Futures Roundtable estimates to determine the number of second growth acres already pre-commercially thinned that could be harvested at 55-years of age to meet market demand. Recent research financed by The Nature Conservancy determined the desired log characteristics for a dedicated small log processing operation on Prince of Wales Island could be obtained from 55-year old hemlock and spruce stands. The 55-year harvest level, currently practiced by the southeast Alaska private timber industry, contrasts with the Forest Service’s practice of waiting until second growth is 90 years old before harvesting it. With funding from Geos and NRDC, and assistance from the Tongass National Forest (for GIS data), Mater Ltd. and Oregon-based Conservation Biology Institute updated the initial report with the region’s first map of accessible second growth using GIS data supplied by the Tongass National Forest.

Juneau Empire Opinion Piece by Jim Furnish

Big changes are coming for the Tongass National Forest. Agency officials should seize the opportunity to make a clean break with their turbulent past, and do this as quickly as possible. Much good will come for all concerned by swiftly ceasing clearcut logging of old-growth forests. 

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For Immediate Release on June 25, 2014

Contacts: Catherine Mater, President, Mater Engineering (541-753-7335); Dominick DellaSala, Ph.D., Chief Scientist, Geos Institute (541-482-4459 x 302, 541-621-7223); Nathaniel Lawrence, Natural Resources Defense Council  (360-534-9900); Jim Furnish, Retired Siuslaw National Forest Supervisor (240-271-1650)

A recently released study of second growth availability on the Tongass National Forest shows that the U.S. Forest Service can end industrial old growth logging there within 5 years while, if it chooses, still increasing the total volume of trees harvested. The Forest Service announced in May that it was considering transitioning timber sales from old growth to second growth but within 10 to 15 years. The new study shows that transition can begin immediately and finish in no more than 5 years, shifting logging to second growth in previously logged and roaded areas outside of sensitive resource lands.

A 2014 study update commissioned by Geos Institute and Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) conclusively shows that there is immediate access to supplies of second growth trees that could be harvested in southeast Alaska as an alternative to harvesting old growth trees. The original study conducted by Oregon-based Mater Ltd. released in 2013 used Forest Service and Tongass Futures Roundtable data to estimate the number of second growth acres already pre-commercially thinned that could be harvested at 55-years of age.  Prior research financed by The Nature Conservancy determined the desired log characteristics for a dedicated small log processing operation on Prince of Wales Island could be obtained from 55-year old hemlock and spruce stands.

[Reprinted from Greenwire with permission from Environment & Energy Publishing, LLC. www.eenews.net 202/628-6500]

Southeast Alaska’s Tongass National Forest could transition completely to second-growth logging within the next five years, according to a new report from an Oregon-based consulting firm.

The report by Mater Engineering Ltd. said sufficient trees are available in previously logged, roaded stands in areas the Forest Service has already designated for logging.

But the transition would require the area’s logging and manufacturing infrastructure to be upgraded to process small-diameter logs. It would also require changes to Forest Service rules to allow trees to be harvested at an earlier age.

The report was commissioned by the Geos Institute, an Ashland, Ore.-based nonprofit that aims to protect forests in the face of climate change.

“We were surprised by how much 55-year-old second-growth volume could be obtained to offset old-growth logs in the Prince of Wales region and that the transition could be notably accelerated if the administration adopts policy changes on when younger forests can be re-harvested,” said Mater Engineering consultant Catherine Mater.

Quickly phasing out old-growth logging on the 17-million-acre Tongass, one of the world’s few remaining intact temperate rainforests, could also provide a market for private landowners including the Sealaska Corp. to harvest more young growth, the report said.

The report comes as debate rages over Forest Service plans to allow limited old-growth logging to sustain local mills while it transitions to young growth. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack in July issued a memo saying that within 15 years, the “vast majority” of timber harvested on the nation’s largest national forest will be young growth (Greenwire, July 5).

Conservationists argue the transition must happen more quickly, but a logging official suggested it will take roughly twice as much time for second-growth trees to be old enough to cut.

“There is clear potential to stimulate a new economic model in southeast Alaska where a viable wood products industry works side by side with ecologically sustainable tourism and fishing,” said Dominick DellaSala, chief scientist of the Geos Institute.

The report found a base-line volume of 15 million board feet per year is needed to establish and sustain the processing of second-growth logs in an existing, but upgraded, medium-sized sawmill in the Prince of Wales region.

The Forest Service would have to lift the so-called cumulative mean annual increment (CMAI) — which requires most trees to grow until they are 90 years old before being cut — in order to allow the harvest of 55-year stands, the report said.

Vilsack’s plan endorsed a bill by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) that would allow the Forest Service to change CMAI, allowing it to harvest second-growth timber sooner. But the bill, S. 340, is strongly opposed by conservation groups since it would convey public forests to a private corporation.

Vilsack’s plan calls for allocating more Forest Service staff and resources into planning second-growth timber sales, considering amending the forest plan to speed the transition, and supporting research into second-growth management and wood markets.

It encourages the Agriculture Department to offer financial assistance to retool mill equipment to more efficiently process younger timber and to establish a federal advisory committee to provide stakeholder input.

A primary concern of the Forest Service is the low availability of second-growth trees in a forest where industrial harvests did not begin in earnest until the 1950s.

For Immediate Release – October 28, 2013

Contacts:
Dominick A. DellaSala, Geos Institute – (541) 482-4459 x 302, (541)-621-7223 (cell)
Catherine Mater, Mater Ltd. – (541) 753-7335

Ashland, OR – A new report prepared by Oregon-based Mater Ltd., using updated Forest Service timber acreage and age class distribution data, shows that the agency could complete transition to supplying a second growth logging economy in Southeast Alaska within 5 years.

In May 2010, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced a framework to transition away from old growth logging on the Tongass National Forest, something the Forest Service said it believed could be done “quickly.” Early this month, Forest Service officials announced their “focus on identifying the timber base suitable to support a transition to young-growth management, in a way that supports the continued viability of the forest industry in Southeast Alaska.”

The Mater report shows such a transition could take place in as little as 5 years, shifting exclusively to previously logged stands of second growth, in the current land base already designated for logging and close to existing roads. Along with logging and manufacturing infrastructure adapted to work with small diameter logs, the transition would require changes to rules about how soon second growth stands can be cut. The report also recommends an aggressive regime to research and identify new value-added lumber grades and products to meet existing market demand.