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Logging in Tongass To Be Limited
New York Times (AP Dispatch) Filed at 3:19 a.m. EDT April 14, 1999
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Clinton administration, in a move to increase protections for ancient trees in the nation's largest forest, is placing 234,000 acres off-limits to logging and other development.
The changes in the 17 million-acre Tongass National Forest in Alaska are also aimed at helping protect species such as the Sitka black-tailed deer and Alexander Archipelago wolf and should lead to the development of fewer roads in pristine areas.
``What we're trying to do is strike a sustainable balance up there, both for the natural resources that are nationally significant as well as a sustainable source of timber for the forest products industry in southeast Alaska,'' Agriculture Undersecretary Jim Lyons said in a statement released today.
The changes will come in the form of an update to the 1997 management plan for the Tongass. The plan will be in effect at least until 2007, Lyons said, adding that the decision is intended to end the 33 separate appeals that have been filed against the 1997 plan.
The updated plan cuts the maximum allowable timber harvest in the Tongass by 30 percent a year, and land open to logging will be reduced by 15 percent to about 576,000 acres.
Also under the new plan, nearly half of the land that may be used for logging can be harvested only once every 200 years, instead of once every 100 years as is currently allowed.
Lyons said the changes also will help sustain the forest industries, as the allowable timber harvest remains well within the projected demand for timber from the region in coming years.
But a timber industry representative said that the new maximum allowable harvest is below real demand and that the changes could put at least one sawmill in the region out of business.
``It confirms our worst fears that this administration is determined to drive the last nail in the coffin of southeast Alaska's timber-based economy,'' said Jack Phelps, executive direct of the Alaska Forest Association, which represents 300 forest products companies.
[What we are talking about here are publically-owned trees in a national forest owned by the people of the United States. When are the property rights of the American people going to be recognized?]
Bart Koehler, executive director of the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council, one of the groups that filed a 150-page appeal to the 1997 plan, said he was pleased with the changes.
``We're relieved that we're finally getting a decision,'' he said. ``We're also feeling very good about some very significant additional protections for some very important wildlands and watersheds in the Tongass.''
The decision will increase protected forest land in the Tongass to nearly 13.7 million acres, up from more than 13.4 million acres currently.
Of the 234,000 additional acres being protected, 100,000 had been previously deemed as suitable for logging. The other 134,000 were not considered suitable for logging, and the decision ensures they won't be available for logging for the life of the management plan.
The plan changes would take effect Oct. 1.
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