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remote wilderness character of much of the region provides refugia from which harvested 

 wildlife populations can be replenished. 



It has been argued that current forest management practices on the Tongass do not place 

 wildlife at risk, because only a very small fraction of the entire land base will ever be 

 logged. Although it is true that most of the Tongass land base will never be logged, it is 

 important to recognize that the most important wildlife habitats occur in the comparatively 

 rare productive high-volume stands that are also of major importance for timber 

 production. Two- thirds of the Tongass is rock, ice, scrub forest, or alpine tundra. The 

 remaining one-third is classified as commercial forest land. Of this, only 4 percent of the 

 land base (672,000 acres) is classified as high volume. This means at least 30,000 board 

 feet per acre. Finally, less than 1 percent of the entire land base (114,000 acres) exists in 

 the highest volume class (over 50,000 board feet per acre). 



What does all this have to do with wildlife and biological diversity? As is the case virtually 

 everywhere on earth, the most productive sites for timber or agriculture also have high 

 potential for wildlife production. The Tongass is no exception. The high volume stands on 

 low elevation uplands or in river and stream bottoms where soils are productive, are the 

 focus of the tradeoff between timber production and wildlife. It is these stands that provide 

 critical winter habitat for deer, as well as life history requisites for other species of wildlife, 

 such as mountain goats, furbearers, brown bears, cavity-dependent birds, and numerous 

 invertebrates; and it is these stands that are of primary interest to the timber industry. 

 Between 1980 and 1986 inclusive, the average volume per acre harvested from the Tongass 

 exceeded 54,000 board feet. Fifty percent of the highest volume stands (those in excess of 

 50,000 board feet per acre) have already been harvested, and of the remainder, 50 percent 

 will be logged in the next 40 years under the current schedule. 



