America's Salmon Forest

Anadromous Waters Catalog in Fish Alaska Magazine

4/6/2020

According to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADFG), 322 of Southeast Alaska's 5,000+ anadromous waterways (waters that support ocean-going fish like salmon and steelhead) are officially recognized as supporting annul escapements (or runs) of steelhead. The "officially recognized" part is key, as this means they are included in the ADFG Anadromous Waters Catalog (AWC). We believe there are many more than 322 that are not documented at this time. 

Being included in the catalogue is important because anyone looking to develop a project in documented anadromous waterways must adhere to conservation measures that help ensure the fish resources aren't harmed in the process. 

Over the past few years, Trout Unlimited has worked to increase the number of officially recognized anadromous streams by using citizen science - going to select Tongass 77 watersheds and surveying the area for steelhead. By the end of the year, Trout Unlimited hopes to have four new species additions to the AWC, and nearly 10 miles of undocumented habitat added. 

Blog by Jenny Weis Photos by Josh Duplechian

A story was recently printed about our efforts in Fish Alaska magazine. Learn more about why it’s important for waters to be catalogued and how you can help.

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TU Alaska: The HOME EDITION of the 2020 Great Alaska Sportsman's Show

4/4/2020

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Despite what is going on in the world, we can see sun poking through and beginning to melt the snow, we can hear the spring birds chirping, and that can only mean one thing: fishing season is not too far off.

This weekend, we would have been at the Great Alaska Sportsman’s Show in Anchorage, with updates on our work to conserve fish and wildlife habitat across Alaska. However, as you likely guessed, the Sportsman’s show was postponed, along with many of our other favorite get-togethers.

Instead, the Trout Unlimited Alaska team decided to bring the booth straight to you in your homes. Check out this video of Eric, Kayla and Meghan giving campaign updates as if we were talking to you at the Sullivan Arena!

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Executives demand continued protections for Tongass National Forest

12/17/2019

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Austin Williams, Trout Unlimited, (907) 227-1590 or awilliams@tu.org

Business chiefs say Forest Service failed to recognize key values of Southeast Alaska National Forest in a joint letter.

JUNEAU, AK - In a direct and urgent call to maintain protections for fish and wildlife on the Tongass National Forest in Southeast Alaska, executives of some of Alaska’s and the nation’s best-known fishing and hunting outfitters and retailers sent a letter to U.S. Forest Service leaders on Monday urging the national Roadless Rule be kept in place on the Tongass.

“Our ability to fulfill our missions and meet the needs of our customers, and the Forest Service’s ability to meet the needs of the public, are directly tied to one another,” the heads of nearly 100 companies, including Orvis, Sage, First Lite and Simms, say in the letter. “Either we succeed as stewards of our public lands together with the Forest Service, or we standby as turmoil over management decisions grows and forest values are degraded.”

The letter, which urges the Forest Service to maintain the Roadless Rule on the Tongass, is a concerted effort by the business community to ensure the habitat that sustains their operations is protected, clarifying that decisions related to management of the Tongass have a direct and profound impact on their customers, members and the organizations themselves.

Addressed to Secretary of Agriculture, Sonny Perdue, and Forest Service Chief, Vicki Christiansen, signers emphasized the economic strengths of fishing, tourism and outdoor recreation in Southeast Alaska. Together, these now account for 26 percent of regional employment and add $2 billion to the local economy. The letter clarifies that these attributes rely on world-class fish and wildlife, recreation values, subsistence resources within the forest.

“Roadless areas on the Tongass are some of the best and most valuable lands on the forest. Many of the most important salmon streams are in roadless areas. Increasingly scarce winter deer range and prime bear habitat is often found in low elevation roadless areas,” the groups, which also include Alaska-based businesses Coastal Alaska Adventures, Glacier Guides, UnCruise Adventures, Bear Creek Outfitters, and others wrote. “Roadless areas offer the right combination of beautiful scenery, wild landscapes, fish and wildlife, and access that our growing tourism and recreation industry demands.”

The public has through today to submit a public comment. According to the executives signed onto the letter, an American paradise hangs in the balance.

In addition to affected businesses, numerous tribes and communities in southeast Alaska have passed resolutions or spoken out in favor of protecting roadless areas on the Tongass. Public comment at meetings hosted by the Forest Service in Alaska and Washintgon, D.C. overwhelmingly favored retaining the Roadless Rule. In some communities, 100 percent of the public comment supports protecting roadless areas and the majority of public comments to the Forest Service during the scoping period opposed changing the 2001 Roadless Rule for Alaska.

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Businesses Support the Roadless Rule

12/17/2019

Taking care of the land that takes care of Southeast Alaska businesses is just common sense. More than 70 outfitters and guides, tour operators, gear manufacturers and retailers, sportsmen organizations, and conservation groups spoke up with this message today.

Trout Unlimited Alaska is very pleased to release the following letter calling on the Trump Administration and U.S. Forest Service to maintain the protections for the Tongass National Forest by maintaining the national Roadless Rule.

Fisheries, recreation and tourism account for 26% of jobs in Southeast Alaska. These signers want this number to continue to grow and recognize that healthy fisheries and intact habitat are needed to do so.

“Roadless areas offer the right combination of beautiful scenery, wild landscapes, fish and wildlife, and access that our growing tourism and recreation industry demands. The Roadless Rule’s protections for these unique values give our businesses and organizations a level of certainty upon which we base our business investments and hiring decisions,” said more than 70 businesses who signed onto the letter.

We thank these groups and organizations for speaking up for the Tongass and encourage everyone to follow their lead and submit a comment supporting continued protections on wildlife and recreation habitat before the end of day December 17th.

Submit Comment

If the Roadless Rule is revoked: what would come next?

11/4/2019

Bad news if you care about fish, wildlife and wild places: the president, governor and our members of Congress in Alaska support opening up 9 million acres of the Tongass National Forest to old-growth logging and road building by removing the Tongass from the Roadless Rule.

The situation gets even worse when one considers that if that exemption goes through and the Tongass no longer benefits from the conservation measure of the Roadless Rule, a new Tongass Land Management Plan would likely have to be created and the fish-and-wildlife-friendly “Tongass Transition” will be scrapped.

Let us back up to explain fully what this means for our fish and wildlife.

Thanks to thousands of comments from Southeast Alaskans and others who care about the forest, the Forest Service updated the Tongass Land Management Plan (TLMP) in 2016. The process was lengthy, expensive and sometimes contentious but the end-result was a Forest Plan that protected high value fish and wildlife habitat that accommodated logging and had widespread public support. This is where the aforementioned “transition” comes into play.

In 2010, the Forest Service announced it would reduce old growth timber harvest on the Tongass while increasing the harvest of second or young growth timber. This shift was coined the “Tongass Transition” and like the 2016 Forest Plan, it was the product of a great deal of public input and was broadly supported by folks in Southeast Alaska.

Essentially, the 2016 Forest Plan provided the terms for which the Transition would be implemented. So, for what was perhaps the very first time ever on the Tongass, we had commonly held goal (prioritizing fish and wildlife and the growth of their associated industries!) with a framework established for how to achieve it. Although no one flew a “Mission Accomplished” banner across the stern of an aircraft carrier, there was a general sense the infamous Tongass Timber Wars had finally come to an end.

Skip ahead 2 years. The Trump Administration accepted the State of Alaska’s petition to review the Roadless Rule in Alaska. Skip another year ahead where we’re now facing a potential full exemption from the Roadless Rule. More specifically, the administration has directed the Forest Service to list the complete removal of the Roadless Rule as the “preferred alternative” in the Draft environmental impact statement (EIS). If this moves ahead and the Roadless Rule is un-done on the Tongass, all the public process, consensus and tax-payer provided planning dollars would be flushed down the drain.

A full exemption from the Roadless Rule will require a new TLMP. All that time, energy and money that went into the 2016 Plan (including many of your comments) will have to expended yet again, just three short years later.

If the Transition to a sustainable young growth harvest regime isn’t scrapped altogether it will most certainly be extended to the point it will become meaningless—as long as politicians continue to clear the way for more old-growth harvest, Tongass timber operators will get in line for it. They have no motivation to change, adapt or innovate when they continue to get government hand-outs.

Governor Dunleavey began his time in Alaska as logger on the Tongass back in the 80’s, Senator Murkowski grew up in the region during heyday of clear-cutting old growth trees and mashing them into pulp.

However, the reality is, an exemption from the Roadless Rule will not create another single logging job on the Tongass. In fact, according to a cost-benefit analysis performed by the Congressional Budget Office, an exemption will only serve to reduce the amount of money outfitters and guides and tourism businesses stand to make each season.

All these political attempts to turn back the clock makes me nostalgic for 2016. The only way we get back to that is to defeat the proposed exemption to the Roadless Rule! Anyone can comment using our online form here. We encourage you to take a moment to customize your comment and explain why Roadless Areas on the Tongass (or Chugach) National Forest is important to you.

Comment Today

Nov. 4-14: check out the list of communities where the Forest Service will be holding meetings on the Roadless Rule. We encourage you to attend and ask questions.

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Anadromous Waters Catalog in Fish Alaska Magazine

TU Alaska: The HOME EDITION of the 2020 Great Alaska Sportsman's Show

Executives demand continued protections for Tongass National Forest

Businesses Support the Roadless Rule

If the Roadless Rule is revoked: what would come next?

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