Your Action Can Help Protect Tongass National Forest

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) are once again taking the lead to help protect the Tongass. They are asking their congressional colleagues to join them in letters to President Bush criticizing his decision to revoke roadless area protection for the Tongass, the country's largest national forest, and asking him to reverse it.

These congressional champions are eager to get additional signers on their letters. Please use the form below to let your senators and representatives know today how unhappy you are about the Tongass Roadless decision. And ask them to join Sen. Boxer and Rep. DeLauro on their letters to President Bush.

Sample Letter for Campaign

Subject: Please sign on to Boxer/DeLauro letter on Tongass

Dear [ Decision Maker ] ,

It is with great urgency that I write to urge you to sign a letter to President George Bush opposing his recent action to open the Tongass National Forest in Alaska to renewed logging. The letter is being circulated for signatures by Sen. Boxer and Rep. DeLauro.

The Administration announced just before Christmas that it would exempt the Tongass from protections of the landmark Roadless Area Conservation Rule. I find that decision deeply troubling and I urge you to join your colleagues in opposing it and in seeking to reinstate protection for the roadless areas on the Tongass.

That exemption exposes 9.3 million acres to potential development, not just the 300,000 acres the Administration usually cites. That 300,000-acre number accounts for anticipated clearcut acreage only and doesn't include acreage that could suffer from associated development. That number could be four times as large. The Administration flatly fails to measure the real footprint of industrial-scale development: logging roads, log dumps, log transfer facilities and the like. These will sprawl across the Tongass landscape and its watersheds.

When the Administration asked the American people their opinion of the proposal, the public offered over 1 million comments. And less than one percent supported the plan to exempt the Tongass National Forest from the Roadless Area Conservation Rule.

I urge you to oppose the Administration's decision as well and to sign on to Senator Boxer's and Representative DeLauro's Tongass letter.

Sincerely,

Campaign Launched:
February 03, 2004

Background Information

TONGASS NATIONAL FOREST, ALASKA
At 17 million acres, the Tongass is the nation's largest. It is the major part of the largest intact temperate rainforest in the world.
An extraordinary array of fiords, glaciers, forested islands and mountains fill its boundaries. The forest includes groves of towering Sitka spruce, western hemlock and red and yellow cedar. Some of these stands grow to be over 200 feet tall and live as long as 1000 years-millennial groves in the purest sense.

The dense old-growth of the Tongass provides vital habitat for fish-five species of salmon alone-and wildlife, including grizzly bears, wolves, wolverines, Sitka black-tailed deer, bald eagles and northern goshawks.

The Tongass has suffered destruction commensurate with its size. Over a million acres of pristine forest have been lost to industrial logging and development on the Tongass since the 1950s. Approximately 70 percent of the biggest and best trees, which sustain the remarkable wildlife on this forest, has been clearcut. 5000 miles of roads have been gouged through it.

The Bush Administration is intent on logging what is left of the biggest and best trees, the biological heart of the Tongass. Removing the Tongass from the protections of the landmark Roadless Area Conservation Rule of 2001 is the essential first step in that scheme. The Forest Service has already scheduled approximately 50 timber projects in Tongass roadless areas. Logging these remaining portions of the best habitat in one of the last coastal temperate rainforests will seriously compromise wildlife on the forest and undermine one of the greatest wilderness resources in our nation.