Timber

Burls may be important to the health of trees, but they’re also financially valuable, sometimes fetching thousands of dollars for a slab.

To help Alaskans sort through dozens of candidates, Alaska Public Media is asking each where they stand on the issues.

Alaska’s wildland firefighters have been completing their annual training and, with help from a state grant, strategically cutting and removing trees, many of them killed by spruce beetles.

It’s one of the first sales to focus on second growth logging, following a federal plan to stop cutting down old growth trees.

Southeast Alaska is getting special attention in part because the Biden administration wants to reinstitute the Roadless Rule in the Tongass and end large-scale, old-growth logging.

It has been 21 years since the 2001 Roadless Rule for the Tongass National Forest was first established. For the people involved in the battles between industry and subsistence, the tug-of-war over land use in the Tongass National Forest has been going on even longer. 

The Biden administration on Tuesday formally began the process of restoring ‘Roadless Rule’ protections to millions of acres of Southeast Alaska’s federal forestlands.

On Friday the Biden administration announced Nov. 23 as the start date for its formal process to reinstate the Roadless Rule for the Tongass National Forest.

Eventually, the forests evolve into old growth with a healthy ecosystem that is better for wildlife. But it takes a very, very long time.

In an unsigned letter to the corporation’s shareholders, management says the election could be tainted by what it called “unfair attacks.”