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.
The Forest Service is asking the public to weigh in on its proposal to eliminate protections for roadless areas. This is your opportunity to tell the Forest Service that you value keeping our wildlife areas, wild salmon watersheds, and our fishing and tourism economies strong. Your input matters if you live in southeast Alaska, if you visit the Tongass, or even if you merely hope to visit someday! While we have a simple, pre-written comment available for you online, personalized comments can be more effective. Below is an outline and key points for creating your own comment.
Some additional detail that may be helpful: The Existing Roadless Rule
Roads
There has been a popular topic in the news lately; the Roadless Rule. So, let’s run through some facts: The Roadless Rule provides important protections to about 58 million acres of back country public land area throughout the United States that is managed by the United States Forest Service. These roadless areas cover 9.4 million acres of land throughout the Tongass National Forest. The Roadless Rule prohibits new road construction and commercial logging on these forested areas. Current congressionally designated lands protect only about a third of documented fish habitat, which makes Roadless Rule protections critical to our fish and wildlife habitat. The Roadless Rule has been in place on the Tongass for nearly 20 years! During that time, Southeast Alaskans have been able to enjoy public lands, our economy has grown to be based upon our resources (fishing, tourism), not at their expense (clear-cut logging). There are many misconceptions about this, but we want to set the record straight. The Roadless Rule is intended to keep public lands, salmon and trout habitat, and strong economies as they are today for future generations to enjoy and prosper from. The state of Alaska has petitioned the Forest Service to undo the Roadless Rule in the Tongass. This would lead to increased road-building and industrial clear-cut, old-growth logging that harms salmon. On behalf of the fish, outdoor recreation economy and clean water that defines this region, we are calling on anglers across the country to submit comments to the Forest Service opposing these changes.
The Roadless Rule is working. It does its job in supporting community growth while sustainably maintaining resources that serve Alaskans in multiple ways. We hope you’ll join us as we stand up for common-sense policies that safeguard the trees, fish and wildlife resources that continue to provide for Americans. For more information on the Roadless Rule, check out the Roadless 101 Blog. While we would much prefer to be working on stream restoration projects, supporting sound fish management practices, and highlighting Alaska’s great fish resources, unfortunately, we’re seeing several attacks to Public Lands in the Tongass that need our attention. With the development agenda of our Governor, President, and U.S. Senators in play, that kind of work will have to take a backseat to speaking up to uphold past conservation gains and minimize future losses of fish and wildlife habitat and public lands access on the Tongass. “Logging, as currently practiced and planned in southeast Alaska, has the potential to significantly and permanently alter large amounts of wildlife habitat. Wildlife species which are adapted to use existing habitat my decline and associated recreational and subsistence uses may be substantially reduced.” - Alaska Department of Fish and Game Any one of the current issues below would be significant individually, but taken together, you can see there’s no hyperbole behind us saying that public lands on the Tongass are under attack like no other time since the pulp mill days. We need your voice now more than ever to protect our Forest against these threats.
Here are a few things you can do to help. We have tried to make them as easy and painless as possible for you:
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.
### 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 |
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