Conservation group says Obama should be tougher on Tongass

Tongass National Forest
Part of the Tongass National Forest in April 2008. (Creative Commons photo by Xa’at)

A federal proposal to make Southeast Alaska’s logging industry sustainable while preserving old growth in the Tongass National Forest does too little, too slowly, according to one conservation group. The Oregon-based Geos Institute says the Tongass National Forest draft plan is out of step with a global agreement to reduce climate change.

President Barack Obama visited Alaska in September to see the effects of climate change firsthand. Then, a few months later, the U.S. joined about 195 nations in signing the Paris Climate Change Agreement. The president has made reducing carbon emissions a talking point during his time in office.

“But his administration puts forth a plan that’s not ambitious enough,” said Dominick DellaSala, a scientist at the Geos Institute. What he’s referring to is the draft timber plan for the Tongass, which is open for public comment until February.

In a nutshell, the federal plan outlines dramatically reducing old growth logging while ensuring a sustainable supply of young growth trees. The problem, DellaSala said, is the plan isn’t aggressive enough.

“Those acres of trees over time being cut down would be equivalent to 4 million additional cars on Alaska roads every year,” DellaSala said.

That estimate is over a hundred years. The Geos Institute has been crunching the numbers with Forest Service data. DellaSala believes the transition from old to young growth logging could be done in five years, rather than 16. That’s what the plan is proposing.

DellaSala says trees soak up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere like a sponge. Essentially, a big stick of carbon.

“Now unfortunately, when a tree does fall in a forest and if it’s done by logging, you’re going to lose about 80 percent of that stored carbon,” DellaSala said.

Eventually, when it decomposes, it goes up into the atmosphere as greenhouse gas. And with old growth trees, DellaSala says you get more carbon.

With the Paris Climate Change Agreement, leaders came up with guidelines to slow global warming. They pledged to protect forests, like the Tongass.

“So it’s absolutely critical to everyone’s future that we keep those temperatures below that 4 degree Fahrenheit tipping point that most scientists believe that all hell will break loose in terms of climate change,” DellaSala said.

Owen Graham isn’t concerned with the Paris Climate Change Agreement. He’s the executive director at the Alaska Forest Association, a timber industry group.

“You know, I don’t really give a damn about the Paris, what they did over there with climate change,” Graham said.

Graham thinks the Tongass draft plan already transitions to young growth trees too soon. Any sooner could be devastating.

“That’ll put the local sawmills out of business. And it seems kind of pointless. It’s just cutting the trees early and exporting them,” he said.

Graham said most mills in the area can’t process the less valuable product. So the trees would likely be shipped overseas or down south, resulting in the loss of hundreds of regional jobs.

“The industry that we’ve had in Southeast Alaska has never been a big industry despite what you hear from some of the environmental groups,” Graham said. “We’ve never been a big industry and we’ve never had a significant impact on anything, let alone global warming.”

Dominick DellaSala said the goal of his report isn’t to reduce jobs. It’s to find alternatives.

“I think we need to demonstrate that with a pilot study that these young trees can be processed locally. They can add jobs and they can have value to them,” DellaSala said.

Forest Service reps said they need more time to review DellaSala’s report before commenting. But DellaSala says the clock is ticking. The president is wrapping up his term.

“This is not a legacy gift to Alaskans when we still have this much old growth on the table,” DellaSala said.

How much old growth is on the table? According to the plan, more than 43,000 acres by about the year 2117. That sounds like a lot. But it’s about a quarter of a percentage point of the entire Tongass.

The Forest Service is holding an open house on Jan. 19 to discuss the draft plan on the Tongass. It starts at 5 p.m. at the Juneau Ranger District conference room. Public comment ends Feb. 22.

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