The Biden admin­is­tra­tion has moved to restore pro­tec­tion of old-growth forests in South­east Alaska’s vast Ton­gass Nation­al For­est, pro­tec­tion that was stripped away in wan­ing months of the Trump regime.

The U.S. Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture will “repeal or replace” a deci­sion that removed the Ton­gass from a Clin­ton-era Road­less Rule that had pro­tect­ed more than nine mil­lion acres of the 16.9 mil­lion-acre nation­al for­est. The nation­al for­est, cre­at­ed under Theodore Roo­sevelt, includes almost all of the Alas­ka Panhandle.

A por­tion of the vast Ton­gass Nation­al For­est, pic­tured at sun­down from a quad­copter fly­ing over the Menden­hall Val­ley (Pho­to: Andrew Villeneuve/NPI)

The Ton­gass is America’s largest tem­per­ate rain­for­est. It was once giv­en over to sup­port­ing two big pulp mills in Ketchikan and Sit­ka, with a third planned for Juneau. Its ancient forests were sold for a pit­tance, with the U.S. For­est Ser­vice real­iz­ing a return of less than five cents on the dollar.

As Tim­o­thy Egan wrote in the New York Times, eight hun­dred year old trees were being sold for the price of a Big Mac.

The tables turned thir­ty years ago. With the Ton­gass Tim­ber Reform Act, Con­gress rolled back an ear­li­er require­ment that four hun­dred and fifty mil­lion board feet of for­est be made avail­able for clear cut­ting each year, with an auto­mat­ic $40 mil­lion appro­pri­a­tion to build the roads to “bring the cut out.”

The Ketchikan and Sit­ka mills, shorn of their cor­po­rate wel­fare, were closed.

Since then, South­east Alas­ka has enjoyed a new econ­o­my built around tourism, recre­ation and the abun­dant salmon runs of such rivers as the Stikine, Taku and Unuk. Until the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic hit last year, hun­dreds of thou­sands of cruise ship pas­sen­gers vis­it­ed Juneau, Ketchikan and Skag­way each year.

The Trump regime sought to recre­ate the bad old days. After a meet­ing between Trump and Alas­ka Gov­er­nor Mike Dun­leavy on Air Force One last year, the Trump con­trolled USDA enact­ed a new “rule” that pulled back pro­tec­tions in force for twen­ty years under the Clin­ton Road­less Rule. The goal was to resume and expand log­ging of old growth forests in val­ley bot­toms of the Tongass.

The areas imme­di­ate­ly tar­get­ed for cut­ting totaled only 186,000 acres, but includ­ed the biggest trees sup­port­ing the rich­est salmon habi­tat. Much of the Ton­gass con­sists of rocks, ice and forests on no com­mer­cial value.

Nugget Falls, locat­ed in the Ton­gass Nation­al For­est, emp­ties into Lake Menden­hall (Pho­to: Andrew Villeneuve/NPI)

“I com­mend the Biden Admin­is­tra­tion for ensur­ing the future of our shared pub­lic lands is based on sci­ence, a legal­ly sound process, and stake­hold­er input,” said Sen­a­tor Maria Cantwell (D‑Washington) in a state­ment sent to NPI.

“The fate of one of the world’s last great remain­ing tem­per­ate forests should­n’t be a polit­i­cal deci­sion made on a whim. The salmon runs, car­bon stor­age, and tourism appeal that the Ton­gass cur­rent­ly pro­vides will always be more valu­able to Pacif­ic North­west com­mu­ni­ties than any sub­si­dized log­ging projects.”

Cantwell and fel­low Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen­a­tor Deb­bie Stabenow of Michi­gan pre­vi­ous­ly object­ed to the roll­back last year, lay­ing out the case:

Sci­en­tists have repeat­ed­ly urged main­tain­ing pro­tec­tion for this large­ly intact, tem­per­ate rainforest.

The Ton­gass would right­ly be man­aged as America’s cli­mate for­est because of the Ton­gass’ crit­i­cal capac­i­ty for car­bon stor­age and cli­mate change mit­i­ga­tion. The pro­tec­tion of these lands for their con­ser­va­tion val­ue also sup­ports healthy pop­u­la­tions of salmon and oth­er wildlife essen­tial to the peo­ple of the region.

Researchers stud­ied vast 1960s and 1970s clearcuts on Prince of Wales and Chichagof Islands. They found that lit­tle sun­light reach­es the ground beneath dense sec­ond growth stands, and that plants on the for­est floor are sparse.

Such habi­tat does not sup­port Sit­ka black tailed deer, brown bear and oth­er among four hun­dred species of wildlife found in the Tongass.

John Schoen, a long­time sci­en­tist with Alas­ka Fish & Game and Audubon Alas­ka, wrote in his book Ton­gass Odyssey::

“The clear cut­ting of old growth is an archa­ic and unsus­tain­able tim­ber prac­tice. This appraisal was clear­ly artic­u­lat­ed in 2014 when many sci­en­tists – includ­ing two for­mer chiefs of the For­est Ser­vice – wrote the pres­i­dent, request­ing ‘a nation­al old growth con­ser­va­tion pol­i­cy that ful­ly pro­tects the remain­ing old growth on nation­al forests through­out the Unit­ed States’.

“The many sus­tain­able resource uses on the Ton­gass – from sub­sis­tence har­vest­ing of fish and wildlife to com­mer­cial and sport­fish­ing, tourism and out­door recre­ation and car­bon stor­age – are at risk from con­tin­ued log­ging of old growth.”

The reac­tion to Friday’s action by the Biden Admin­is­tra­tion pit­ted back­ers of the old bring-the-cut-out, drill-baby-drill, dig-baby-dig Alas­ka econ­o­my against those cham­pi­oning a sus­tain­able, cli­mate-con­scious future.

“From tourism to tim­ber, Alaska’s great Ton­gass Nation­al For­est holds much oppor­tu­ni­ty for Alaskans, but the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment wish­es to see Alaskans suf­fer at the lack of jobs and pros­per­i­ty,” Dun­leavy said in a tweet.

Amy Gulick, author/photographer of “Salmon in the Trees: Life in Alasa’s Ton­gass Rain For­est,” which makes the case that ancient forests are essen­tial to spawn­ing salmon and oth­er liv­ing things, said in an email: “The Ton­gass is a place where there are salmon in the trees – every­thing is still inter­con­nect­ed in this intact ecosys­tem. I am heart­ened to see that the Biden admin­is­tra­tion is show­ing us that it’s pos­si­ble to exer­cise restraint and main­tain the true rich­es of the mag­nif­i­cent Ton­gass rain for­est in Alas­ka for gen­er­a­tions to come.”

The admin­is­tra­tion, under law, will come up with a new pre­lim­i­nary “rule” for the Ton­gass in August, and then seek pub­lic com­ment. When the Trump regime was con­sid­er­ing a roll­back of pro­tec­tion, the vast major­i­ty of com­ments received were in sup­port of main­tain­ing pro­tec­tion of unlogged old growth forest.

The Biden admin­is­tra­tion has con­front­ed mul­ti­ple Trump actions in Alaska.

The new admin­is­tra­tion has put on hold its predecessor’s fire sale of oil and gas drilling rights in the Arc­tic Refuge.

The sale was a mon­u­men­tal bust, with major oil com­pa­nies declin­ing to bid, and major banks say­ing they would not under­write oil explo­ration in the refuge.

But the new admin­is­tra­tion is sup­port­ing Cono­coPhillips’ big Wil­low oil devel­op­ment project, locat­ed in Alaska’s Nation­al Petro­le­um Reserve just west of the Prud­hoe Bay oil field. It was green light­ed under Trump.

The Biden admin­is­tra­tion is also defend­ing the con­tro­ver­sial King Cove Road, designed to link two iso­lat­ed Alas­ka Penin­su­la vil­lages, that would go through the Isem­bek Nation­al Wildlife Refuge.

Con­ser­va­tion groups have nation­al­ized bat­tles over log­ging, min­ing and oil drilling on pub­lic lands in Alas­ka. After all, they’re pub­lic prop­er­ty. A key weapon has been exhib­it-for­mat books pub­lished by Braid­ed Riv­er, a divi­sion of Moun­taineers Books. Under pres­sure from Alaska’s con­gres­sion­al del­e­ga­tion, the Smithsonian’s Nation­al Muse­um of Nat­ur­al His­to­ry, moved to a remote cor­ri­dor and cen­sored an exhib­it from Sub­hankar Banerjee’s book “Arc­tic Nation­al Wildlife Refuge: Sea­sons of Life and Land.” It got him booked at oth­er muse­ums across the country.

Still, Alaska’s Repub­li­can Sen. Lisa Murkows­ki is a piv­otal Sen­ate vote when it comes to such issues as upgrad­ing America’s infra­struc­ture and vot­ing rights. (Native vil­lages are a big source of sup­port for Murkowski.)

The Biden Admin­is­tra­tion gave her some­thing to applaud by back­ing the Wil­low project. But she’s not hap­py at prospec­tive return of the Road­less Rule.

“Alaskans believe the Road­less Rule bur­den­some, unnec­es­sary and since its incep­tion have called for the Ton­gass to be exempt from it,” she said Fri­day in a state­ment. “We need to end this ‘yo-yo’ effect as the lives of Alaskans who live and work in the Ton­gass are upend­ed every time we have a new President.”

But the Biden administration’s deci­sion means that eight hun­dred year old trees will not be upend­ed with chain­saws, and ecosys­tems left intact.