ALASKA FOREST RESEARCH 



PROBLEMS AND PROGRAM 



R. F. Taylor 



Forester in Charge, Alaska Forest Research Center 



The forests are one of Alaska's renewable resources. If wisely 

 used they can be forever a source of supply for many forest 

 products, and of great value to the future State of Alaska. No 

 one knows exactly how much forest land there is in the Terri- 

 tory. The nationwide forest survey has not been extended to 

 Alaska, but it is estimated that a third of the land area is 

 covered by forests of some kind (10). Figure 1 shows the 

 approximate location and extent of the forest land. 



The forests of Southeast Alaska contain dense stands of spruce 

 and hemlock sawtimber and pulpwood, very little of which has 

 yet been utilized. The advent of pulpmills will make full use 

 of those forests. The interior of Alaska, too, contains valuable 

 forests and forest land although their value is not yet generally 

 realized. 



As most of you know, forestry is the preservation of forests 

 by wise use. This wise use concerns itself not only with timber 

 production, but with the related needs of safeguarding water- 

 shed, range, scenic, recreation, wildlife and other values. Wise 

 use requires an intimate knowledge of the forest resource to be 

 managed. Forest research attempts to gain this intimate knowl- 

 edge and to develop best methods of forest management. 



In 1928 a forest experiment station for Alaska was authorized 

 by Congress. Twenty years later the money was appropriated 

 for a small research station, called a research center. Our cen- 

 ter, with headquarters in Juneau, was two years old last July 1. 

 It is not yet a regional station with divisions set up to tackle 

 the various lines of research mentioned a moment asro. We 

 cannot attempt to work on more than a few of the most pressing 

 problems, and most of these are in Southeast Alaska. They are 



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