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Because of the provisions of ANILCA Sec. 705(a) and the two 50-year 

 timber contracts, the Tongass is not even close to being managed for true 

 multiple-use. As it has for the last 30 years, the Forest Service is still 

 running an expansive private timber plantation for the two pulp mills on the 

 public's land at great public expense --in both taxpayer dollars and loss of 

 public fish and wildlife resources. Along with the repeal of Sec. 705(a), 

 termination of both contracts is environmentally and economically imperative. 



Termination of the contracts would allow normal management 

 flexibility for land allocations, would promote competitive bidding for all of 

 the Tongass timber, and allow protection of key fish and wildlife habitat 

 areas and subsistence resources. APC and KPC would still be able to buy 

 timber, but they would no longer be allowed to totally dominate other timber 

 operators, the Forest Service, and other forest resource users. The mills 

 would also only be able to buy what they could reasonably utilize, just like 

 every other purchaser of public timber on our vast national forest system. 



THE 50-YEAR CONTRACTS HAVE A LONG HISTORY OF ABUSE. Signed over 30 years ago, 

 the contracts are no longer in the best public interest, neither nationally 

 nor for the region. The contracts were signed prior to the Multiple Use and 

 Sustained Yield Act of 1960, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of 

 1969, and the National Forest Management Act (NFMA) of 1976. Management of 

 public forest lands has changed dramatically since the 1950s, but the 

 contracts remain virtually unchanged -- dinosaurs lumbering along in our great 

 northern rainforest. Congress tried 13 years ago to fix this problem: 

 Section 15(b) of NFMA specifically provided that the contracts be revised and 

 brought into compliance with other provisions of NFMA. The Forest Service has 



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