Yesterday morning, the Trump administration announced plans to open all 16.7 million acres of Alaska’s Tongass National Forest to logging, removing protections that had conserved America’s largest intact temperate rainforest.
The change immediately opens 9.3 million acres of old growth forest by reversing the 2001 “roadless rule” that had ensured the forest’s future. The Tongass is one of America’s last remaining defenses against climate change, absorbing at least 8 percent of the carbon stored in the lower 48 states combined.
The Center for Western Priorities released the following statement from Executive Director Jennifer Rokala:
“As the West burns due to climate change, the Trump administration is doing everything it can to further accelerate this human-caused disaster. This shows that President Trump’s ‘trillion trees’ plan is a sham—planting saplings will do nothing to help the planet while you’re bulldozing roads and chopping down trees in the largest old growth temperate rainforest in the world and one of America’s last great natural places.”
“Scientists have told us that the world must protect 30 percent of our land and water by the end of the decade if we are to prevent a global ecological collapse and slow the climate crisis. Logging the Tongass is an unconscionable leap in the wrong direction.”
For more information, visit westernpriorities.org.
Aaron Weiss is Media Director for the Center for Western Priorities.