Obama administration clear-cutting Tongass National Forest with taxpayer money

July 27, 6:43 PMWildlife Conservation ExaminerCathy Taibbi

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Tongass National Forest. Photo: Henry Hartley

This amounts to a National Emergency for conservation efforts.

In an appalling turnabout, the Obama administration has sold out America’s national treasure, the magnificent Tongass National Forest, in SE Alaska, to the logging industry.

The loggers and chainsaws are in Tongass National Forest now. There is no time to waste in getting this betrayal of the American people stopped.

To get involved, contact Greenpeace , The Wilderness Society ,SaveBioGems.org, Ancient Forests International,  sign the Care2 Petition, or contact the Obama Administration, or your representative.

Just hours after heroically overturning the flawed Bush-era logging plan known as WOPR, according to Greenpeace, plans were approved to sacrifice the national heritage of millions of Americans, not to mention the world, for the financial gain of a few.

Tongass is a 17 million acre temperate rain forest, the largest in America.

Some things need to remain sacred.

This forest is vital to more than rare and endangered plant and animal species. According to SuperEco,  about 75,000 people, including members of several indigenous tribes, depend on this land for living.

The logging contract was awarded to Pacific Log and Lumber owned by Ketchikan resident Steve Seley.

On July 17, the administration stopped the flawed WOPR initiative, thereby saving Oregon’s ancient northwest forests. While everyone was celebrating and writing thank-you notes to the President, Obama’s Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack was quietly approving a new plan, using our taxpayer dollars, to allow logging of this priceless, road-less forest ecosystem. Laws to protect the remaining road-less wilderness areas of American were instituted by the Clinton administration.

All that is now in jeopardy, as it sets a precedent to open even more of our precious remaining public wilderness areas to exploiters.

Why should we care about protecting Tongass National Forest from logging?

For one, this ancient, vital forest ecosystem belongs to all Americans. It is supposed to exist for all Americans for all time, not as a quick cash-cow for a few greedy and powerful businesses.

Another reason to care is the endangered wildlife there. The Alexander Archipelago Islands Wolf, which exists nowhere else on Earth. Also threatened are black-tailed deer, grizzly bears, wolverines, black bears, timber wolves and bald eagles.

More, without the shady, cool, ancient forest canopy, the area will dry more and be subject to increasingly rapid temperature fluctuations, exacerbating the problems the Earth faces from forest fires, drought, climate change and carbon buildup.

Once it is clear-cut and the loggers and politicians have taken their money, what are the rest of us of left with? The American tax payer and anyone who values the wilderness will have been robbed; our heritage vandalized.

If you’ve never stood on land that’s been clear-cut, it’s a lifeless Martian landscape. Even years later, there’s little improvement. I know. I’ve seen and personally walked on clear-cut land.

While eventually something will grow back, it will never, ever be like the magnificent, complete, diverse and flourishing forest system that the National Parks System was supposed to preserve.

Once the timber mill executives have their sawdust and their profits, and the forest is decimated and the wildlife destroyed (it’s certainly not going to grow back in our lifetime), what will be left of our National Forest?

This video will give you an idea.

Is this something you want to support with your tax dollars?