Tribes, municipalities, conservation groups criticize public process, call for continued protections for irreplaceable old growth forests
JUNEAU (ÁAKʼW ḴWÁAN TERRITORY) — The US Department of Agriculture today announced that it has filed a proposed rule and environmental study repealing the Roadless Area Conservation Rule. The agency stated that its proposed rule would completely eliminate the Roadless Rule, removing protections against logging and associated roadbuilding from roughly 9 million acres in the Tongass National Forest and nearly 45 million acres nationwide. Public comments will be accepted through September 21.
The Southeast Alaska Conservation Council, along with a number of Southeast Alaska Tribes, municipalities, small businesses and individuals, has sought to defend Roadless protections on the Tongass for decades. During the scoping period following the Notice of Intent, 99 percent of the more than half a million comments and petitions submitted during a 21-day comment period opposed rescission. Since the rule’s inception and during past attempts at removal, public support for Roadless protections has consistently surpassed 90 percent.
Despite the immense scale of national forest land to be impacted by this rulemaking, the USDA has markedly reduced opportunities for public engagement at each stage of the process. The comment period for the Draft EIS allows only 30 days to read and analyze the proposed rule and environmental study and provide meaningful input.
The USDA has also elected not to hold public meetings; in comparison, in the two years leading up to the rule’s enactment in 2001, more than 600 public meetings were held across the country, including 30 in Alaska. In the absence of official meetings during this repeal process, communities across the country organized hearings of their own, with SEACC co-hosting four in-person events in Juneau, Kake, Klawock and Ketchikan, Alaska, inviting members of the public to testify.
Rescission of the Roadless Rule from the Tongass would remove safeguards against industrial logging and roadbuilding from about half the forest, and would add roughly 190,000 acres to an inventory of lands ‘suitable’ for timber production. Defenders of the Roadless Rule cite the value of these remaining stands of mature and old-growth trees as especially important habitat for wildlife, birds and fish, and as subsistence and recreational harvesting grounds. These lands also support robust industries like tourism and commercial fishing, provide recreational opportunities, and hold profound spiritual and cultural meaning to many.
Statements in response to the Draft Environmental Impact Statement
“It’s clear the processes required by the National Environmental Policy Act are being treated as merely boxes to check on the path to enacting an entirely political agenda to clear cut the last remaining in-tact old-growth forests in America,” said Maggie Rabb, Executive Director of the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council. “The wanton destruction of these irreplaceable ecosystems isn’t supported by the science, the public, or any of the inputs meant to shape this Environmental Impact Statement. It’s not even financially justifiable, with the Forest Service losing more than $1.7 billion in taxpayer dollars on Tongass timber sales over four decades. There is really no justification for opening up Roadless areas to logging, especially on the Tongass National Forest.”
“To have healthy people, water, salmon, and wildlife, you need a healthy forest,” said Organized Village of Kasaan Tribal President Mike Jones. “We have an obligation as tribal leaders and as a community to do what we can to protect what’s left of the old growth on Kíis Gwaay. So much has already been logged. If the Roadless Rule is rescinded, there won’t be any old growth left. We have important cultural reasons to care for the Tongass, but because these trees store so much carbon, the forest acts like the northern lungs of our planet. Rescinding the Roadless Rule will have a global impact too.”
“The Roadless Rule is a critical tool that helps protect intact, old-growth forests, and we will continue to defend it,” said Earthjustice Attorney Kate Glover. “Keeping the Roadless Rule in place on the Tongass National Forest helps protect Indigenous ways of life, healthy watersheds, salmon streams, and Southeast Alaska’s economy, and buffers us from climate change. The Tongass is still healing from a half century of intensive, clearcut logging. The region has moved on, and its economy today depends on intact forests, not clearcuts.”
“How would repealing the Roadless Rule impact my business of growing Southeast Alaska oysters? Deforestation creates harm beyond just cutting the trees down to the tidelines. The increased quantity of runoff from clearcuts will have devastating impacts to marine life — that includes shellfish,” said James Greeley, co-owner of Tommaso Shellfish in Sea Otter Sound near Prince of Wales Island. “Our business relies on healthy oceans and forest ecosystems of the Tongass rainforest to grow our oysters.”
“The Roadless Rule is essential to the success of small businesses like ours,” said Hunter McIntosh of The Boat Company. “The natural values of intact watersheds are essential for the visitor industry in Southeast Alaska. People do not want to see clearcuts and decaying logging roads. There are thousands of jobs in Southeast Alaska in recreation and tourism. And there are thousands more in the seafood industry, which depends critically on salmon spawning streams in the old growth forests of the Tongass.”
“Officials in Washington D.C. may not understand how important Roadless Rule protections are for Southeast Alaska fisheries — the Roadless Rule was created in large part to protect fish habitat, especially salmon habitat, from damage caused by timber roads and clear-cut logging,” said Linda Behnken, Executive Director of Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association. “Removing Roadless protections from the Tongass will harm our fisheries and devastate Southeast’s rural communities that rely on salmon, with salmon runs supporting 1 in 10 jobs in Southeast Alaska.”
