Save the Tongass

Each year more than a million people come to Alaska’s Inside Passage to see brown and black bears, kayak glacial seas, and immerse themselves in the Tongass National Forest, the largest national forest in the United States and the largest intact temperate rainforest in the world. The Tongass is also home to some of the last remaining ancient Sitka spruce, hemlock, and cedar trees. These trees in turn are vital to salmon, other wildlife, and people.
The U.S. Forest Service is planning to strip protections for more than nine million acres of the forest, opening up land to clear-cut old growth logging and industrial development. This threat to the Tongass and its inhabitants is also a threat to the visitor industry in SE Alaska, the area’s biggest economic driver, which relies on these wild places.