Trump to strip protections from Tongass National Forest

[essentialsaltes]

LINK

President Trump will open up more than half of Alaska’s Tongass National Forest to logging and other forms of development, according to a notice posted Wednesday, stripping protections that had safeguarded one of the world’s largest intact temperate rainforests for nearly two decades.

As of Thursday, it will be legal for logging companies to build roads and cut and remove timber throughout more than 9.3 million acres of forest — featuring old-growth stands of red and yellow cedar, Sitka spruce and Western hemlock.

 

[Hank77]

As of Thursday, it will be legal for logging companies to build roads and cut and remove timber throughout more than 9.3 million acres of forest — featuring old-growth stands of red and yellow cedar, Sitka spruce and Western hemlock.

If logging is done correctly it can actually save a forest.

 

[durangodawood]

If logging is done correctly it can actually save a forest.

Good luck with that.

I do think fire done correctly can save a forest too.

 

[Brightmoon]

It seems that he wants to be as destructive to things he think liberals care about before he leaves . The fact that this stupid negative behavior affects the entire planet doesn’t enter his spoiled selfish little mind

 

[renniks]

Logging is usually much better for the wildlife than having all old trees. When I want to find the most diversity of animals I target the logged areas

 

[Brightmoon]

Logging is usually much better for the wildlife than having all old trees. When I want to find the most diversity of animals I target the logged areas

depends on the forest

 

[dzheremi]

Just think of all the jobs that will be created! And how the people who are engaged in those jobs can eat their paychecks and hook their 401(k)s up to their oxygen tanks once all those pesky trees are gone!

 

[durangodawood]

Logging is usually much better for the wildlife than having all old trees. When I want to find the most diversity of animals I target the logged areas

Clear cuts followed by tree plantations are the worst.

Selective logging leaving many of the biggest mature trees seems to be the best, but not so profitable. Plus it still creates roads all over the place which can silt streams and ruin fish habitat for years and years.

Thats my understanding.

 

[Desk trauma]

From the article:

Logging in Alaska costs U.S. taxpayers millions each year, because of a long-standing federal mandate that companies profit from any timber sale. This means the Forest Service often covers harvesters’ costs, including road building. According to a Taxpayer for Common Sense analysisof the Forest Service’s accounts, the Tongass timber program has lost roughly $1.7 billion over the last 40 years.

Yet another giveaway.

 

[Hank77]

I do think fire done correctly can save a forest too.

I agree.

 

[durangodawood]

....Yet another giveaway.

Thats a major Trump m.o.: fuel his "look at me!" economy by borrowing from the future.

 

[KarateCowboy]

Good luck with that.

I do think fire done correctly can save a forest too.

It would have helped considerably with the recent California wildfires. State limitation of controlled burning set us up for the disaster of this year.

That said, interesting quote from the Sierra Club

“Preserving the Tongass is a matter of survival. A standing healthy forest is absolutely essential to the subsistence survival of Indigenous peoples. It’s also essential for mitigating the climate crisis that threatens us all. We will continue to fight for the Tongass and those who depend on it. We will challenge the lifting of restrictions against logging in the forest's roadless areas at every turn,” the Sierra Club said in a statement.

Notice how they open with a racist appeal to nativist sentiment.

 

[Brightmoon]

What’s racist about it . Some native Americans do live in nature . Some non natives live like that too.

 

[KarateCowboy]

What’s racist about it . Some native Americans do live in nature . Some non natives like like that too.

Then there's no need to bring race into the picture. But they did. It's very telling.

 

[Brightmoon]

Im part American Indian I don’t think it’s racist

 

[rambot]

It would have helped considerably with the recent California wildfires. State limitation of controlled burning set us up for the disaster of this year.

That said, interesting quote from the Sierra Club

“Preserving the Tongass is a matter of survival. A standing healthy forest is absolutely essential to the subsistence survival of Indigenous peoples. It’s also essential for mitigating the climate crisis that threatens us all. We will continue to fight for the Tongass and those who depend on it. We will challenge the lifting of restrictions against logging in the forest's roadless areas at every turn,” the Sierra Club said in a statement.

Notice how they open with a racist appeal to nativist sentiment.

Ok. So what if it does have effext the subsistence of indigenous people? You think they're littered with Walmart's up there? There's no food security like in the lower 49 in the bush

No. Folks up there depend on the wildlife for survival

 

[KarateCowboy]

Ok. So what if it does have effext the subsistence of indigenous people? You think they're littered with Walmart's up there? There's no food security like in the lower 49 in the bush

No. Folks up there depend on the wildlife for survival

Then say "folks up there". No need to get all racist and nativist. It excludes everyone else. But then for racists that's kind of the point

 

[Jimmy D]

 

[MIDutch]

If logging is done correctly it can actually save a forest.

Given that the Tongass forest has been doing fine for THOUSANDS, if not MILLIONS, of years, what, exactly is logging going to be saving it from?

 

[MIDutch]

From the article:

Logging in Alaska costs U.S. taxpayers millions each year, because of a long-standing federal mandate that companies profit from any timber sale. This means the Forest Service often covers harvesters’ costs, including road building. According to a Taxpayer for Common Sense analysisof the Forest Service’s accounts, the Tongass timber program has lost roughly $1.7 billion over the last 40 years.

Yet another giveaway.

So the American public is actually paying the logging companies to make a profit?

Wouldn't it just be easier and more ecologically reasonable to just give the companies what they would have earned and tell them to stay out of the forests?