...and the forest is the Tongass, it's highly unlikely that anyone will hear it -- so remote, pristine, and primeval is this temperate-rainforest treasure. The Tongass still has 9.5 million acres of roadless areas -- in all of the National Forest System there are only some 60 million, so the Tongass is a huge chunk of what remains. Logging the Tongass has never made even ordinary commercial economic sense. The trees, often hundreds of years old, fetch only a few dollars on the market. Over the years, the Forest Service has lost more than a billion dollars trying to convert this priceless natural wonder into toothpicks.
If the Clinton administration's Roadless Rule had not been high-jacked by the Bush administration, the Tongass would be safe. But it was, and now the Forest Service has proposed to rev up the chainsaws again, approving the logging of nearly 1,500 acres of old-growth forest in two roadless areas. The Central Kupreanof and Sue timber sales would be the first new assault on our wild forest heritage since President Obama took office. The Forest Service doesn't have the final say here -- these sales must personally be approved by Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, and environmentalists are urging him to stand up for keeping our wild forests standing.
The revival of logging proposals on the Tongass is one of the surest signs that "business as usual" is making a comeback in Washington. So watch closely what Secretary Vilsack does -- it's a sign of just how emboldened the old boy network is feeling this winter that such a proposal is even on his desk.