Tongass National Forest

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The Tongass National Forest, stretching 500 miles along the southeastern coast of Alaska, is the largest temperate rainforest in the world. . At 16.8 million acres, the Tongass is the single largest National Forest in America, being more than 73 percent of Alaska's southeastern panhandle. Within its boundaries lie two national monuments, one national park, and seventeen wilderness areas. It is home to many unique species of animals.

This place is threatened by timber companies clear-cutting a significant amount of the forest.

In May of 1997, the U.S. Forest Service issued a land management plan for the Tongass. During the planning process, scientists from within and outside the Forest Service warned that continued clear-cut logging in large blocks of old growth forest areas could pose a serious threat to fish and wildlife. And, of more than 19,000 public comments, more than 70% supported lower levels of logging and greater protections for fish and wildlife.

The timber cut is practically worthless, too. Most of the timber produced goes unsold, and timber sales have hit its lowest level in more than thirty years. “A combination of weak Jappanese markets, closure of pulp mills (which provided a market for low-grade timber), and steadily declining and unpredictable timber supply have pushed the Tongass harvest to its lowest level in more than thirty years” (http://www.fs.fed.us..ber_mkt.pdf#xml=htt
p://www.fs.fed.us/cgi-bin/texis/searchalls
ites/search.allsites/xml.txt?query=Tongass
+Timber+Price&db=allsites&id=42485e2b0)

However, the Tongass timber industry provides many jobs in a place where they are not so plentiful.

Your Thoughts?

http://www.akrain.org/rainforest/tongass/

http://www.fs.fed.us..ber_mkt.pdf#xml=http

://www.fs.fed.us/cgi-bin/texis/searchallsi
tes/search.allsites/xml.txt?query=Tongass+
Timber+Price&db=allsites&id=42485e2b0