Featured Alert

Help Safeguard the Tongass!

Act Now! Safeguard the Tongass National Forest in Alaska

The Forest Service is beginning a court-ordered revision of the Tongass National Forest plan.  Your input is needed to ensure the revised forest plan moves away from the unsustainable logging of wildlands in our country’s largest national forest and improves safeguards for this magnificent coastal rainforest.

The development of a new plan is the perfect opportunity for the Forest Service and the American public to work together to safeguard America’s rainforest in Alaska.

Here's How You Can Help!

Send your official comments to U.S. Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth today! 

Let the Forest Service know you believe it’s time for a change in the Tongass! Let’s move away from the wasteful spending on a flawed logging program and toward a new plan which makes sense for Alaskan communities and safeguards the intact watersheds in Tongass National Forest for generations to come!

What is at Stake

The Tongass National Forest in Alaska is America’s Rainforest. It was established by Teddy Roosevelt in 1907 and is the largest intact temperate rainforest in the world. Its stands of giant Sitka Spruce and other old-growth trees which are home to wolves, bears, salmon and bald eagles that have disappeared from many other parts of the country. Logging in the Tongass primarily targets the rare groves of large old-growth- ecologically rare and vital to the region’s wildlife.

The Tongass timber program has been a perennial money-loser and U.S. taxpayers have been forced to bear the burden of an inflated timber program and unnecessary, expensive new logging roads. According to the Forest Service’s records, it lost nearly $48 million in a single year, and has spent nearly $1 billion since 1982, on the logging and road-building in America’s rainforest in Alaska. The emphasis on logging not only wastes taxpayer dollars, but also puts the Tongass’s biological diversity at risk.

Help Safeguard the Tongass!