Alaska Rainforest Conservation Act-HR 979

America's last, great rainforest is at risk

Stretching over 1000 miles of coastline from Ketchikan to Kodiak, Alaska boasts the largest intact temperate rainforest in the world. Most of this rainforest lies within the 22 million acres of the Tongass and Chugach National Forests. Sadly, clearcutting, logging roads, and other harmful development activities are tarnishing this global treasure. The Alaska Rainforest Campaign is working to permanently protect this majestic wild place by supporting the Alaska Rainforest Conservation Act.

The solution
The Alaska Rainforest Conservation Act would permanently safeguard the remaining important wildlands of the Tongass and Chugach National Forests to provide for hunting, fishing, recreation, tourism, and traditional subsistence activities. Sustainable resource development could still continue in areas that already have logging roads and infrastructure.

The Act protects the Tongass and Chugach by:

• Designating Wilderness areas, Wilderness Study Areas and Wild and Scenic Rivers
• Protecting other wildlands by expanding "Land Use Designation II" (LUD II) areas, which are closed to commercial logging
• Protecting watersheds and critical wildlife habitat of Prince William Sound, The Copper River Delta and the Kenai Peninsula
• Expanding Admiralty Island National Monument to include Mansfield Peninsula
• Establishing Restoration Areas, where lands damaged in the past are rehabilitated and protected
• Establishing special management areas, where small-scale community-based resource management would be allowed but clearcutting and new, permanent road building would be prohibited

The Alaska Rainforest Conservation Act Would Create:
	Tongass	Chugach
Wilderness	3.2 million acres	3.6 million acres
Wilderness Study area		236,000 acres
LUD II (no commercial logging)	5.8 million acres
Restoration Areas (non-development)	117,000 acres
Special Management Areas (no clearcut)	43,000 acres
Total Acres Protected	9.16 million acres	3.8 million acres
Wild & Scenic Rivers:	65 river systems	16 river systems
The act guarantees a future for fishing, hunting, recreation, tourism, and subsistence in the rainforest. Resource development activities would be allowed on private land and areas of the forest that already have logging roads and infrastructure. There are more than ten billion board feet of timber along the more than 4,500 miles of existing forest roads that would not be affected by the Alaska Rainforest Conservation Act.