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Historical Successes
Success in the forest
Through the hard work of our members, SEACC has more than 35 years of success in standing up for the Tongass. When SEACC was founded, there were two large pulp mills, no protected lands in the Tongass, and little protection for fish and wildlife. Today the pulp mills are gone, more than 6.5 million acres are permanently protected, and more protections for fish and wildlife are in place. Here are a few highlights:
1980: The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act permanently protects more than 5 million acres on the Tongass.
1990: Tongass Timber Reform Act becomes law. SEACC spearheaded efforts to improve forest management and permanently protects over one million acres of valuable forest.
2000-2008: Defending the Tongass against the Bush Administration: When President Bush took office in 2001 he made his intentions to serve industry quite clear by naming a former timber industry lobbyist and aide to Senator Frank Murkowski, Mark Rey, to the position of undersecretary for natural resources in the Department of Agriculture. This position oversees the Forest Service. During his entire tenure, however, SEACC successfully defended all Tongass roadless and wild watersheds against logging and roadbuilding.
2005: Forest Plan ruled illegal: The 9th Circuit Court ordered the Forest Service to do the 1997 Tongass Land Management Plan (TLMP) over after SEACC and others challenged it. The court ruled that the agency erroneously doubled its experts’ projections of market demand for Tongass timber. This error exaggerated projected logging levels and resulted in much more land being designated for logging than the agency’s own economists found was necessary to supply local mills
- Dixie Baade, founder of the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council
