America's Salmon Forest

Press Release: New statewide poll shows Alaska voters support conserving critical salmon streams, roadless areas on the Tongass National Forest

6/13/2019

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Austin Williams, Trout Unlimited Alaska, (907) 227-1590; Kiel Brunner, Tulchin Research, (415) 608-2851

New statewide poll shows Alaska voters support conserving critical salmon streams, roadless areas on the Tongass National Forest

JUNEAU, AK – According to the results of a new poll commissioned by Trout Unlimited Alaska, a majority of likely voters in Alaska support the Roadless Rule, which conserves undeveloped lands in our National Forests. Overwhelmingly, voters support efforts to protect salmon, the salmon industry, and high-value salmon streams in the Tongass such as those included in the Tongass 77.

As the State of Alaska pushes to eliminate the Roadless Rule on the Tongass and the U.S. Forest Service contemplates an Alaska-specific rule, the poll shows 57 percent of Alaskans, and 60 percent in Southeast Alaskans, support keeping the Roadless Rule in place. When given the option, 79 percent of Alaskans (and the same percentage of Southeast Alaskans) prefer either keeping the Roadless Rule in place without change or making limited changes that include new protections for important fish and wildlife areas. Only 11 percent of statewide voters and 17 percent of Southeast Alaska voters prefer a full exemption from the Roadless Rule for the Tongass National Forest.

The Roadless Rule limits new commercial logging and construction of new logging roads, which helps sustain salmon and wildlife habitat across the region. The rule does not preclude all development activities. It allows for forest health projects, harvesting trees for personal use, transportation highways and other development activities. The Forest Service has approved all 58 applications submitted to it for projects in roadless areas, the majority of which pertain to surface exploration of potential mining and hydropower projects. Additionally, the Forest Service has a $68 million backlog of road maintenance in Alaska. (source) Yet, Alaska Governor Dunleavy continues to press the Forest Service for a full exemption from the rule.

“Alaska has the world’s largest, healthiest, and most abundant wild salmon populations, which play a critical role in providing food, jobs, and income through commercial, subsistence and recreational fishing. The results of this poll demonstrate that Alaskans support conserving high-value salmon streams like the Tongass 77 and want the Roadless Rule left in place,” said Austin Williams, Alaska law and policy director for Trout Unlimited. “Exempting the Tongass from the Roadless Rule would be out of step with the views of 79 percent of Alaskans.”

This poll is the latest in years of findings demonstrating a consistent desire among Alaskans to conserve the state’s unique wild salmon and salmon-based industries.

Additional findings from the poll include

Tulchin Research conducted the poll among 400 likely voters statewide in Alaska and 172 likely voters in Southeast Alaska using live professional interviewers calling both landlines and cell phones as well as collecting data online through e-mails from the voter file. The margin of error for the statewide survey is +/- 4.9 percent and for Southeast Alaska is +/- 7.46 percent.

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Trout Unlimited is the nation’s oldest and largest coldwater fisheries conservation organization. In Alaska, we work with sportsmen and women to ensure the state’s trout and salmon resources remain healthy far into the future through our local chapters and offices in Anchorage and Juneau. Follow TU’s Tongass efforts onFacebook, and visit us online at tu.org. Learn more about our work to conserve key areas of the Tongass National Forest at www.americansalmonforest.org

Introducing Kayla Roys to the TU Alaska Team!

5/6/2019

Trout Unlimited’s Alaska Team welcomed Kayla Roys to work on our Tongass National Forest and transboundary campaigns. Since you may be hearing from her, we asked Kayla to introduce herself. Join us in welcoming Kayla!

Hey all! My name is Kayla Roys, and I joined the Trout Unlimited team in March of this year. I grew up in a rather fishy family and was lucky enough to spend most of my childhood outdoors experiencing all that the Tongass National Forest has to offer. From flying out to remote lakes, to summiting mountains in my backyard, I am a southeast girl through and through.

Southeast Alaska is made up of beautiful landscapes that draw in new comers. From mountain streams to saltwater flats, the fishing that Southeast provides is dynamic, within 15 minutes from our front doors, and always better than a day spent at home. We will deal with the heavy rain of fall and the abuse of winter for the long days of summer spent enjoying the outdoors.

Growing up in the Tongass, I found that people connect with one another in a different way than that of a big city; we connect outdoors. In the spring, we emerge from our winter hibernation, and flock together, connections forged by going on hiking, biking, camping and fishing trips. The shared passion of what we do for ourselves and connects us to one another and our environment more than our day jobs ever will.

That being said, I learned at a young age how important the lush forests, wild salmon runs, and clean water are to the Southeast Alaska region and its communities. For me, the importance of a healthy forest is through recreation. I spend my summers connecting with my friends and family on the water. From chasing the illusive southeast Alaska unicorn steelhead in small creeks, to bombing casts in the estuaries to king and silver salmon with my dad. The best memories I have are of dodging between log jams, tromping through muskegs, listening to fly line peel off my reel, and the smell of a campfire on my clothing. For others, the importance of a healthy forest is for harvesting seafood for their families, commercial fishing, guiding tourists, or the many other jobs that depend on the Tongass remaining healthy and wild.

This love for salmon and the outdoors is what drives my work for America’s Salmon Forest. Some of the oldest trees and the largest salmon runs in North America come from the Tongass. It is unthinkable to me that massive open-pit mines are under development in the headwaters of Southeast Alaska’s most important salmon rivers. Or that the Tongass could be open to commercial logging, which could impact recreation, hunting, and fishing, and our entire economy. Now is the time to do everything we can to defend our salmon rivers and forests for sustainable jobs for our region, and future generations to enjoy, just the way I have.

I am looking forward to working with you on behalf of the place we all love and many of us call home. Give me a call or send me an email any time with ideas for this work - or just to say hi.

Sincerely,

Kayla
907.957.6841
Kayla.Roys@TU.org

Cruise the Tongass for Conservation

4/2/2019

Spring is coming early in Alaska this year. The sun is out (most days), the snow is quickly melting, and our nearby streams are starting to gain flow. Before long, the first salmon will arrive and the annual summer frenzy will be at full steam. For those hearty enough that know where to go, some streams already hold early season steelhead.

It’s easy to become complacent and take for granted these seasonal and annual cycles, but doing so is a trap that we must always guard against. As declining salmon populations across too much of their historic range demonstrate, nothing is guaranteed.

One of the more rewarding aspects of working for TU is getting to know and work with our dedicated network of members and business supporters. There is no more passionate or selfless group out there, which is one of the keys to our many successes over the years. Sure, at some basic level we all just love fishing. But, what sets TU members apart is that we also understand that our relationship with the land, waters and fish we hold so dear imparts an obligation that we give back and take care of the resource.

Photo Courtesy of Custom Alaska Cruises.

In recognition of this obligation to give back, one of our long-time partners in Southeast Alaska, Custom Alaska Cruises, is donating 10 percent of its booking through May 1, 2019, to TU in support of our work in Southeast Alaska’s Tongass National Forest. If you’ve ever dreamed of plying the inside passage and its many fjords, glaciers, forests and streams, this is a unique opportunity to do so aboard one of Custom Alaska Cruises’ luxury vessels while ensuring a portion of the costs directly support some of the best remaining salmon and steelhead runs in the world.

The Tongass National Forest holds more than 5,000 individual salmon streams, hundreds of healthy wild steelhead runs, and abundant Dolly Varden and coastal cutthroat trout populations. Black and brown bear, Sitka black-tailed deer and bald eagles are among the more common species that call the vast tracts of wild lands within the Tongass home.

For more information and to book your trip to the Tongass with Custom Alaska Cruises, you can contact Chelsea McCarthy by email at AlaskaCruises@gmail.com or by phone at (970)217-6359. For more information on our work in the Tongass check out http://www.americansalmonforest.org.

Photo Courtesy of Custom Alaska Cruises.

Attacks on the Roadless Rule & Public Lands

7/17/2018

We’re seeing a renewed, comprehensive attack on National Forests in Alaska that seeks to turn over some of the most important fish and wildlife habitat on our public lands for development by special interests.

The Tongass is the Nation’s largest national forest and supplies habitat for the fisheries and ample recreation opportunity of the region. Combined, fishing and tourism supply 26% of the jobs in Southeast Alaska, but these important industries are being cast aside for outdated and unsustainable old-growth logging that accounts for less than 1% of regional jobs and costs taxpayers millions in annual federal subsidies.

Unfortunately, elected officials in the U.S. Congress and the State of Alaska continue to advance efforts to promote heavily-subsidized industrial uses of the Tongass or to privatize them through corporate giveaways and bad land swaps, ignoring impacts to sustainable industries that rely on intact habitat, beautiful scenery and wild places.

In recent months, the attack on the Tongass has spread to include the Chugach and has grown to include the following measures:

The State of Alaska’s Roadless petition: The national Roadless Rule was created almost two decades ago to protect wild areas on federal lands that provide important fish habitat, drinking water, and recreational and business opportunities. In Alaska, -many of these areas have become critical to local economies and are essential to the fishing and tourism industries. This winter, the State petitioned the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the U.S. Forest Service, to exempt the Tongass from the Rule in a move that would enable highly-controversial logging and road building, prop up an outdated and highly-subsidized old-growth logging industry, and turn back the clock on years of successful collaboration in the region. We expect the State and U.S. Forest Service to move forward with rulemaking on this petition any day now.
Sen. Murkowski (R-AK) riders: Alaska’s senior senator has repeatedly introduced riders to exempt the state from the Roadless Rule and to repeal the 2016 Tongass forest plan, which added protections for high-value habitat areas while enabling a sustainable forest products industry based on a 16-year transition away from old growth logging. More than 270,000 public comments were received in favor of the Tongass Plan amendment and 7,233 Alaskans voiced support for increased protections for important fish and wildlife habitat in the creation of the Tongass forest plan. Most recently, Sen. Murkowski has introduced riders to exempt Alaska from the Roadless Rule in the FY19 appropriations bill.
Rep. Young (R-AK) riders: Alaska’s sole House representative passed a rider through that chamber to exempt Alaska from the Roadless Rule in the Farm Bill, and introduced a similar rider to the FY19 appropriations bill, though that was ruled out of order as of July 17.
Additional public lands bills: Senator Murkowski and Congressman Young have introduced an assortment of land transfer and privatization bills. A very short summary of these bills is includes:
1. Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (S. 1481, 1483, 1484 and 1491) These bills would create brand new for-profit ANCSA corporations, increase the corporate land cap, expand corporate selection power, remove important federal protections for fish and wildlife, block public access, grant unwarranted subsurface rights, and privatize valuable public infrastructure (roads, log transfer facilities, docks, etc.).
2. Alaska Native Allotment Act (S. 785 and 1481) Allows an estimated 2,800 individuals or their heirs to select and receive two parcels totaling 160 acres, each, from across federal land in Alaska including within designated wilderness areas. This would create a patchwork of 5,600 inholdings totaling 448,000 acres where the most valuable and important places in Alaska are private and closed to public access.

These efforts are a coordinated attempt to carve off large tracts of Alaska’s most important public lands, and in so doing, jeopardizes lucrative industries and recreation opportunity in Southeast Alaska.

The ongoing saga of Kuiu Island and timber

5/24/2018

Kuiu Island (pronounced “Q-you”) is the 15th largest island in the U.S. and sits in the heart of the Tongass National Forest. The island provides world-class habitat for bears, eagles, salmon, trout, deer, and numerous other species of wildlife, fish, and fowl. Yet, through the years, Kuiu has been subjected to numerous and massive clear-cut timber sales by the Forest Service that have severely compromised the old growth hemlock, spruce and cedar forests upon which these species depend.

Kuiu was heavily logged in the 80s and 90s, and now those clear-cuts are covered in dense second-growth forest that provides little utility to fish and wildlife. The importance of the remaining old-growth stands cannot be overstated.

Jim Klug

In the last decade, the Forest Service has consistently targeted this island for old-growth timber sales. Despite the expenditure of millions of taxpayer dollars on infrastructure and preparation for these sales, and minimum bid requirements that offer to sell the trees for pennies on the dollar, so far there have been no buyers.

2007-2008: The Forest Service completes its environmental analysis and puts Kuiu timber on the market. Nobody buys.
2014: The Sealaska Lands Bill gives Sealaska a large chunk of land on Kuiu Island adjacent to the Forest Service’s sale site.
2016: The Forest Service re-offers the sale and ups the ante by bending its own rules to allow full export of the timber - meaning whoever buys the timber won’t have to process the timber in-state. Nobody buys.
2017: The Forest Service spends more than $3 million of taxpayer money building logging roads on Kuiu Island in attempt to make the timber sale more appealing.
May 5, 2018: The Forest Service offers the Kuiu sale, again, over objections from local users with no new environmental analysis and no consideration for increased use by outfitters, guides, hunters and anglers.

Currently this timber sale is the focus of a lawsuit over how timber sales are administered and the lack of adequate environmental review.

Because past logging on Kuiu Island targeted the largest, most profitable trees, cutting them down at an unsustainable pace, the Island simply doesn’t have any more old-growth forest to give and timber operators can’t make new timber sales there pencil out. If we’re just talking dollars, the annual $1 billion visitor industry and $1 billion commercial and sport salmon fishing industry, both of which directly rely on high quality wildlife and salmon habitat, are a much better bet. It’s time we give Kuiu a break!

Jim Klug

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Press Release: New statewide poll shows Alaska voters support conserving critical salmon streams, roadless areas on the Tongass National Forest

Introducing Kayla Roys to the TU Alaska Team!

Cruise the Tongass for Conservation

Attacks on the Roadless Rule & Public Lands

The ongoing saga of Kuiu Island and timber

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