Dombeck and Wood: The Amazon forest isn’t the only one in peril; Trump has his eye on Alaska

In the faraway Amazon, politics and commercial exploitation are fueling fires that threaten the world’s largest tropical rainforest. Closer to home, in Alaska, the Tongass National Forest, which represents the largest intact temperate rainforest, is facing a serious threat of its own: President Trump’s determined rollback of environmental protections. In both cases, land belonging to all citizens is at risk because of the financial ambitions of a few.

According to a report in the Washington Post, Trump has ordered Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue to change Forest Service policy and open more than half of the Tongass - 9.5 million acres - to the construction of new roads, effectively encouraging development such as large-scale commercial logging of old growth trees.

The Tongass covers a huge area of the Alaskan panhandle. It is largely undeveloped, it’s a carbon storehouse, and it’s a fish factory. The Tongass produces 25% of the West Coast’s commercial salmon catch. Fishing and tourism, which depend on a healthy forest, bring in more than $2 billion to Alaska annually by one estimate. They account for 26% of local jobs; logging accounts for less than 1%.

The president’s directive would undo 20 years of relative stability on the Tongass that was created by the enactment of the Roadless Area Conservation Rule in 2001.

In the late 1990s, before the roadless rule went into effect, the Tongass and other remote forests were the subject of constant controversy and litigation over timber sales and road construction. As is still the case, timber sales on the Tongass lost money and were heavily subsidized by U.S. taxpayers.

By 1998, the Forest Service had constructed more than 380,000 miles of roads in the national forests, largely to aid timber production. The agency also carried an $8.5 billion maintenance backlog. When forest roads are not maintained, they erode and slide into streams, muddying drinking water sources and ruining fish habitat.

Many inside the Forest Service and in Congress rightly began to question why the agency would build more roads into relatively pristine areas when it could not take care of the roads already in place. President Clinton stepped in, directing the agency to develop a new policy for managing untouched forests.

The result was stronger protection of roadless areas. The final rule allowed for new road construction on a case-by-case basis, but it seriously restricted new timber sales. Since the rule was enacted, the Forest Service has approved all 58 project requests it has received for roads in Alaska’s national forests.

Nevertheless, Alaska’s congressional delegation and its governor, pushed primarily by logging interests, want an exemption from the roadless rule. But decisions about our shared land shouldn’t be made at the behest of special interests. They should be made by professional land managers and informed by science - not politics.

The roadless rule affirms a basic truth: Most Americans value their public lands for the clean water, healthy habitat and recreational opportunities they provide. President Theodore Roosevelt’s agriculture secretary, James Wilson, wrote that national forests should be managed for “the greatest good for the greatest number for the long run.” We urge the president and Secretary Perdue to follow this sage advice and do what is best for the long-term health of the land and future generations of Americans.

Mike Dombeck is a former chief of the U.S. Forest Service. Chris Wood is the president and chief executive of Trout Unlimited. From the Los Angeles Times.