At the end of August, Donald Trump reportedly told his Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue to loosen up the logging restriction on the United States’ largest national forest—Tongass, in Southeast Alaska. The Tongass National Forest is home to over 16 million acres of trees and wildlife, and for private industry that means lots of money. The Trump administration released a “USDA Forest Service Seeks Public Comment on Draft Environmental Impact Statement, Alternatives to a Proposed Alaska Roadless Rule,” Tuesday.
Inside Climate News reports that the Trump administration’s intentions here are to exempt the rainforest area from the Clinton-era Roadless Rule, opening up 10,000 old-growth acres to logging. But there’s a lot more:
If enacted, it would allow roads to be built throughout the now-protected area, and it would convert 165,000 old-growth acres and 20,000 young-growth acres previously identified as unsuitable timber lands to suitable timber lands.
The Roadless Rule protections covered 58 million acres of national forest, stopping roadbuilding, logging, and mining. The groundwork for Trump’s decision was laid out by Republicans and their fossil fuel and anti-environmental overlords for years. Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy and Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski have lobbied for these waivers against the Roadless Rule protections forever.
The campaign manager for The Wilderness Society, Josh Hicks, told Inside Climate News that besides the hits to tourism and conservationism, this move hurts the planet’s ability to regulate its carbon emissions. "The Tongass National Forest stores more carbon removed from the atmosphere than any other national forest in the country. By seeking to weaken the Roadless Rule's protections, the Forest Service is prioritizing one forest use—harmful logging—over mitigating climate change, protecting wildlife habitat, and offering unmatched sight-seeing and recreation opportunities found only in southeast Alaska."
Dominick DellaSala, chief scientist at Geos Institute in Oregon, explains that old-growth forest is some of the most important natural resources for regulating our planet’s temperature. "The longer those trees are out there, the longer they have been absorbing carbon from the atmosphere and holding onto it—sequestration. That results in excess carbon that the plants store over time.”
This comes just days after it was reported that the Trump administration has big plans to privatize our national forests’ campsites. You know, the ones that you can go to with your family.