[csusbpeace] Biden Reinstates Logging Ban In America’s Largest National Forest

From: "raccoon" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> ("bigraccoon1")
To: "CSUSBPEACE@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <CSUSBPEACE@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2023 20:47:46 -0800

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/biden-tongass-national-forest-alaska-restored-protection_n_63d19f8ae4b01a43638b7ca7

Biden Reinstates Logging Ban In America’s Largest National Forest

The administration has finalized its reversal of a Trump-era rule that gutted
protections across 9 million acres of Alaska's Tongass National Forest.

A truck loaded with freshly cut timber drives along a road in the Tongass
National Forest on Prince of Wales Island, Alaska.
Salwan Georges/The Washington Post via Getty Images

The Biden administration on Wednesday followed through on its commitment
<https://www.huffpost.com/entry/biden-tongass-national-forest-protections_n_60f04c48e4b01f1189572f51>
to ban commercial logging and other development across more than 9 million
acres of Alaska’s Tongass National Forest — the nation’s largest national
forest.

The move reverses a Trump administration rule that gutted safeguards for the
world’s largest intact temperate rainforest.

In a statement announcing the new rule, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack
said Tongass “is key to conserving biodiversity and addressing the climate
crisis.”

“Restoring roadless protections listens to the voices of Tribal Nations and
the people of Southeast Alaska while recognizing the importance of fishing
and tourism to the region’s economy.”

The announcement is the latest in a decades-long tug of war over the future
of the region.

President Theodore Roosevelt established Tongass as a protected national
forest in 1907 and later expanded it to its current 16.7-million-acre
footprint. In 2001, President Bill Clinton signed into law the “roadless
rule,” which prohibited building roads and harvesting timber on 58.5 million
acres of national forest land, including more than 9 million acres of Tongass.

The Trump administration exempted Tongass from the roadless rule in 2020,
lifting those Clinton-era logging restrictions across 9.3 million acres and
reclassifying 188,000 acres, including 168,000 acres of old-growth timber, as
immediately suitable for harvest.

Often referred to as “America’s Amazon
<https://www.huffpost.com/impact/topic/amazon>,” the Tongass sequesters about
8% of the total carbon isolated in forests in the Lower 48 states, according
<https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb5299764.pdf> to the
U.S. Department of Agriculture, and an astonishing 44% of all carbon
<https://www.kstk.org/2021/03/31/tongass-stores-more-than-40-of-all-carbon-stored-by-national-forests/>
stored in national forests across the United States. And there is growing
recognition that safeguarding the forest will be critical to the fight
against global climate change and species loss.

Environmental groups applauded Wednesday’s announcement while Republicans
<https://www.huffpost.com/news/topic/republican-party> and timber interests
accused the Biden administration of locking up the state’s resources.

Andy Moderow of the Alaska Wilderness League said the decision “recognizes
that Southeast Alaska’s future is rooted in sustainable uses of the forest”
and “puts public lands and people first.”

Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy (R) called it a “huge loss for Alaskans.”

“Alaskans deserve access to the resources that the Tongass provides — jobs,
renewable energy resources and tourism, not a government plan that treats
human beings within a working forest like an invasive species,” Dunleavy said
in a statement.

[csusbpeace] Biden Reinstates Logging Ban In America’s Largest National Forest

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