68 



Tongass 

 National 

 Forest 



16 7 Million Acres 

 (100%) 



3 7 «.l'""l fO^*- 



" *' ^0T CAPABV-E 



HTien i/ie culling vas done from l\IL£A. the commercial timber base of the Tongass 

 was greatly diminished. Ibday some propose to add more wtldemess and tear up 

 govemmettt contracts. 



CHART: US FOREST SERVICE 



conclusions, to judge Alaskan resource 

 developers and government agencies 

 as bad guys, as wasters, as fraudulent. 

 Gov Steve Cowper (D-Alaska) has call- 

 ed for compromise on the issue. He said 

 the national environmental organiza- 

 tions might not want the issue of the 

 Tongass to subside, possibly kecpmg it 

 alive to help raise funds. 



In cooperation with the American 

 theme lo preserve parts of America, 

 Congress m 19S0 set aside a chunk of 

 Alaska as big as California— as 

 wilderness, national parks, wildlife 

 refuges and reserves, wild and scenic 

 rivers— saymg those lands are now in 

 the national heritage for all future 

 generations to enjoy and arc off limits 

 to de\ctopmcn!. Alaska now supports 



75 percent of America's total wilder- 

 ness base. It is also a huge reservoir of 

 diverse lands not in the wilderness 

 bank. That same legislation put 5 7 

 million acres or one third of the Ton- 

 gass and another 2.7 million acres of 

 Southeast National Park into wilder- 

 ness. 



Unfortunately, the long— and hard- 

 fought — bill passed in the waning 

 moments of the 1980 Congress didn't 

 deal wiih small wilderness are^s in 

 Southeast. It dealt out wilderness on 

 the wholesale level in creation of some 

 14 National Forest wilderness area*: 

 and two national monuments, some of 

 ecosystem proportions: Misty Fjords 

 (2.200,000 acres). Admiralty Island 

 (900.000). Tracy Arm (656.000). Stikine- 



LeConte (443,000). Russell Fjord 

 (307.000). South Baranof (300.000), 

 West Chichagof (265.000) and several 

 others in the 100.000 acre class. 



After passage. Southeast Alaska en- 

 vironmental groups felt strongly that 

 many smaller special and sensitive 

 areas would be taken for logging. Now, 

 eight years later, they seek additional 

 lands that reflect less national and 

 more regional desires set aside in 

 moratorium from development. They 

 have a list of 19 new areas, averaging 

 about 90.000 acres each. They have 

 found the support of the U.S. Congress 

 in HR 1516. 



Their wilderness wish list includes 

 some lands that are in the areas 

 scheduled for road development and 

 timber harvest. The limber harvesters 

 are not against the new areas being 

 placed into moratorium. They are will- 

 ing to back off if the remaining land 

 can be reallocated to support the ex- 

 isting level of jobs and harvest. But 

 they feel they are being backed further 

 into a corner. 



The Southeast Alaska Conservation 

 Council, a coalition of environmental 

 groups throughout the region encom- 

 passing the Tongass. says it "wants a 

 viable timber industry, just like most 

 other Alaskans, but it must be truly 

 sustainable and compatible with com- 

 mercial fishing and tourism and 

 with subsistence." 



"We also think yearly congressional 

 review of Forest Service spending is 

 good public policy that won't hurt just- 

 ifiable timber projects." according to 

 Bart Koehler. the group's exec, director. 



In 1980. with passage of ANILCA, 

 Congress made the Tongass different 

 from every other national forest. In 

 Section 703 of the Act. it created 5.7 

 million acres of wilderness and com- 

 pensated an industry to help it main- 

 lain the existing harvest and thus the 

 job level of 1980 During the mark-up 

 sessions of the legislation, maintaining 

 the job level was an important issue lo 

 both sides. 



■■[ANILCA] created so much 

 wilderness on the forest that the non- 

 wildcrncis lands >.^ hich remained open 

 to timber harvest could not support the 

 then existing level of jobs on a sustain- 

 ed yield basis Seclinn 705 of ANII.C;^ 

 was based on an diiernaine rccor.. 

 mended by the regional forester it- 

 resolve the problem His idea was to 

 use imensive management monies to 



16 OLR LAND 



