America's Salmon Forest
  • The Tongass
    • See the Tongass
    • Watch the Tongass
  • get the facts
    • Canadian Mining
    • Climate
    • Fish Habitat Project
    • Public Lands
    • Roadless Rule
    • The Tongass 77
  • Get Involved
    • Stay Up to Date
    • Community Science
    • Canadian Mining
  • News
    • News
    • Blog
    • Press Releases
  • About Us
    • Our Team
    • Contact Us
  • Donate

Blog

Another Attempted Land Grab in the Tongass

2/27/2014

 
Picture
Alaska is a place that is ruled by seasons and cycles that get fairly predictable after you go through them a few times.  We harvest fish, berries and our gardens in the summer, hunt and chop wood in the fall, do various forms of sledding or skiing, take vacations or hibernate in the winter and get ready to do it all over again the spring.

 Alaska is also comprised of mostly federal land,  some 219,000,000 acres or  almost 70 percent of its total land area.  Many of these lands are iconic places like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Denali National Park and the Tongass National Forest—places well known as national treasures.  What is likely far less known outside of Alaska is how frequently Alaskan politicians attempt to raid these treasures.  I haven’t kept track of the actual number myself but it seems a plan to do just that gets hatched about every two years up here.

 The genesis of these plans follows a predictable cycle of its own.  Even though Alaska receives more federal dollars per capita than any other state, many Alaska politicians get elected on platforms that include loud but vague anti-federal agendas— like “Keep the feds out!” or  “Let Alaskans run Alaska!”  Next they add in some unsustainable resource extraction, like what went on during almost 50 years of industrial-scale logging on the Tongass, leaving a private industry in a quandary as to its next move.  Then some politician, full of anti-fed rhetoric,  will typically swoop in with a proposal to rescue the failed industry  by proposing to take federal lands from those nasty people in Washington D.C. (and all us taxpayers) and put them under state ownership, thereby righting the injustice, oppression and tyranny the mere existence of federal lands represents to all true Alaskans. 

 There’s usually a day or two of factional chest-pounding when these resolutions get introduced in our legislature but that fades quickly as folks remember it’s really up to the U.S. Congress to decide how to manage federal public lands. State Senator Bert Stedman (R-Sitka) probably knows that as well as anyone but it hasn’t stopped him from recently introducing Senate Concurrent Resolution 2 which calls for the transfer of Tongass National Forest lands to the State of Alaska so they can be logged by private companies.

 The days are finally starting to get noticeably longer up here now and yet another federal land grab has been proposed in our legislature.  Alaska’s  seasons and cycles continue but some cycles are best recognized for what they are:  silly ideas that may score the odd political point up here but will go nowhere in Congress.

Read a media story about Sen. Stedman’s resolution.



Comments are closed.
    Submit your own story!

    Categories

    All
    People Of Southeast
    Public Lands
    Roadless
    Timber Sale
    Tongass 77

    Archives

    November 2021
    October 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    January 2021
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    July 2018
    May 2018
    February 2018
    November 2017
    June 2017
    March 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    November 2015
    October 2015
    August 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012

    RSS Feed

AMERICA'S SALMON FOREST 

is a coalition of sport, commercial, and subsistence fishermen, business owners and operators as well as private citizens working together to conserve high-quality salmon and trout spawning and rearing habitat in the Tongass, America's largest national forest.

CONNECT
JOIN THE CONVERSATION

Join Us!
  • The Tongass
    • See the Tongass
    • Watch the Tongass
  • get the facts
    • Canadian Mining
    • Climate
    • Fish Habitat Project
    • Public Lands
    • Roadless Rule
    • The Tongass 77
  • Get Involved
    • Stay Up to Date
    • Community Science
    • Canadian Mining
  • News
    • News
    • Blog
    • Press Releases
  • About Us
    • Our Team
    • Contact Us
  • Donate