50 



ANILCA BALANCED WILDERNESS & MDTTPLE USE 

 TIMBER MANAGEMENT 



1978 Tongass National Forest Plan balanced wilderness and 

 multiple use management 



Before the 1980 Tongass wilderness designations. Forest Service 

 planning carried out a multple use mission and determined how 

 much forest was dedicated to wildland preservation, road access 

 hunting, developed recreation, timber management and other uses. 



August 1978 draft Tongass National Forest Plan was very first forest 

 plan to be written for any national forest. The plan was used by this 

 Committee under Scoop Jackson's chairmanship to craft Tongass 

 provisions in Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act 

 (ANILCA). 



Forest Service found that Tongass forest could produce over 10 

 billion board feet of timber each decade on a sustained yield basis. 

 However, 1978 Forest Plan recommended a sustained yield harvest 

 of only 4.5 billion board feet per decade reserving over half of the 

 forest for other uses not directly compatible with timber 

 management, including wilderness preservation. 



In 1980, Congress insured that wilderness designations 

 would not reduce the timber supply cost SE Alaska jobs 



But when this Committee indicated it preferred 5.4 million acres of 

 wilderness, including much of the most accessible timber, the Forest 

 Service responded that it would have to further reduce the amount 

 of timber available from 4.5 to 3.38 billion board feet per decade. On 

 average, the wilderness would reduce available timber by 112 

 million board feet each year. 



This Committee recognized that reduced timber availability would 

 directly result in a loss of jobs in an already economically depressed 

 area where timber manufacture was the only year-around industry. 



Searching for a way to mitigate the impact of wilderness on the 

 livelihood of Southeast Alaska residents, this Committee, but 

 primarily Senators Jackson, Tsongas and the senior Senator from 

 Alaska Ted Stevens, worked with the Forest Service to formulate 

 what is now ANILCA Section 705. 



