Here we go again with anti eco system policies, 3.4 million acres in Alaska‘s Tongass National Forest will be open to logging under a Bush Administration plan. Once more it seems that the Bush administration is in big corporations back pockets. They are backing a plan to open up 3.4 million acres acres of wild, road less back country areas open to clear cutting and new logging roads. It includes 2.4 million acres that are considered very remote and unmolested by man. At more than 26,000 square miles, the Tongass – often labeled the crown jewel in the national forest system – is larger than 10 states.
Christy Goldfuss with Environment America had this to say, “This plan simply ignores economic realities. Logging these pristine areas makes no sense”. He – like most environmentalists – fear that the proposal will devastate the forest. Just more of a Bush administration policy of catering to the timber industry.
The plan released Friday stems from a series of lawsuits filed by environmental groups in 2003, which forced the Forest Service to adjust its timber sale program away from roadless areas to land that can be reached by roads that meander for 3,700 miles through the southeast Alaska forest.
In 2005, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a 2003 plan on grounds that the Forest Service had mistakenly doubled the volume of timber needed to supply local sawmills and failed to consider better protections for roadless areas.
Hopefully they will get this one halted as well. There is plenty of forest accessable by roads that they do not need to open up our pristine forest to the greed of big timber companies.