Proposal would close 77 Tongass watersheds

A delegation of commercial and sport fishermen asked Congress in March to support a legislative proposal to permanently close 77 watersheds in the Tongass National Forest, including 1.9 million acres of salmon and trout habitat, and make fish and wildlife the highest management priority in these areas.

The 77 watersheds targeted by the Trout Unlimited campaign are currently open to development activities, including logging, mining, and road building.

Trout Unlimited is asking Congress to place the watersheds in Land Use Designation II, a conservation status that applies to 12 areas of the Tongass. The designation forbids logging and most roads.

Trout Unlimited claims entire watersheds need to be protected from resource extraction activities, including mining and hydroelectric proposals. These watersheds, however, already have buffer zones and other timber harvesting constraints in place to protect fish habitat, wildlife and water quality.

Owen Graham, Executive Director of the Alaska Forest Association, opposes the proposal, citing data showing that six million acres of the 17-million acre Tongass is already designated as Wilderness or national monuments.

In addition, he noted the Forest Service has administratively set aside about 10 million additional acres. About one million acres remain for timber harvesting, but the actual acreage is less, given the stream buffers and other protections in place to protect fish habitat and other resources.

“There isn’t enough timber available to keep our industry alive,” Graham said, noting there is only one medium-size sawmill remaining in the region. “We’re not surviving at the current rate, we’re slowly dying.”

Shelly Wright, Executive Director of the Southeast Council, expressed opposition to the proposal. “Alaskans love Alaska and if you have visited Southeast lately, you will see that we don’t need anyone to save us from ourselves,” Wright said. “We have assets that can help support our country; minerals, clean energy, timber and fish. Our lands are flourishing and we are happy to keep it that way.”

The Tongass 77 proposal is based in part on a Nature Conservancy study which presented a conservation assessment of the coastal Southeast Alaska forest, including an inventory of ecosystem and habitat values.

The Nature Conservancy teamed up with Audubon Alaska to conduct the study, raising a red flag with some as to its objectivity.

Audubon has been a strong advocate for closing most of the forest to logging and at least half of NPR-A to oil and gas development. In addition to its new proposal to block development in the Tongass watersheds, Trout Unlimited has been trying to block the Pebble Project in advance of any permit application.

“From our view, the Tongass 77 proposal is neither necessary to protect salmon or consistent with the no more provisions in ANILCA,” said RDC Executive Director Rick Rogers.

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