TIME SENSITIVE ACTION ALERT
Please take action by February 22. Easily submit your comments here: bit.ly/1PPsKTs or below, at bottom of this post, on the Forest Services’ website or via email.
Please also sign this petition: Stop old-growth clearcutting in the Tongass National Forest from #Earthjustice encouraging a stop to the Big Thorne timber project in Southeast #Alaska on Prince of Wales:
bit.ly/StopTheBigThorneTimberSale and this one while it is still open: Protect America’s Rainforest from old-growth logging. Also this new petition from Defenders (petition can be signed by anyone from anywhere, if outside of U.S. select other)
Thankyou.The area is home to what is left of the islands population of Alexander #ArchipelagoWolves (approximately only 50 individuals). Since Secretary Jewell did not protect this imperiled species under the #ESA, this will be our only hope in saving the wolves habitat. Earthjustice filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Forest Service aimed at the destructive practice of old growth logging on POW and certainly could use your support.
Please share this alert, this is our last hope for this diminished population of wolves.
Thankyou.
Background information:
The U.S. Forest Service issued a Draft Environment Impact Statement (DEIS) to amend the Land Management Plan for the Tongass National Forest.
The U.S. Forest Service amendment to the Tongass Plan aims to continue old-growth clearcutting.
The DEIS’s preferred alternative aims to end most old-growth logging within 16 years. While some important watersheds would become off limits to old-growth logging, the plan still calls for high levels of old-growth clearcuts — 490 million board feet of old growth to be logged over the next 15 years. The plan will further endanger the Alexander Archipelago wolf, and their home, the temperate rainforests that are so important to the planet, as well as allow more disastrous timber sales like the Big Thorne. The Forest Service is obviously refusing to consider ending old-growth clearcutting in five years, as many conservation groups have called for.
The amendment was originally intended to direct a transition away from decades of controversial and damaging old-growth logging, but the “preferred alternative” would allow continued clearcutting of remaining old-growth forest for many years.
*Be a voice for the imperiled Alexander Archipelago Wolves. Since Secretary Jewell did not protect the wolves under the ESA, the logging projects will move forward sealing the fate of the wolves.
*Written or electronic comments will be accepted for 90 days, ending February 22 – 2016, and should be submitted to: Forest Supervisor, Tongass National Forest, Attn: Forest Plan Amendment, 648 Mission Street Ketchikan, AK 99901.
Comments may also be sent via email to: comments-alaska-tongass@fs.fed.us or via facsimile to (907) 228-6292.
For additional information, please contact Susan Howle, Project Manager, at 907-228-6340, orshowle@fs.fed.us.
Follow these links for additional information:
Please comment against this disastrous plan, already the average distance to roads within GMU2 is 2.1 miles & only 1.7 miles on POW island itself. With such high road density already in place there is little secure habitat.
Sample comment, please personalize:
Dear Supervisor Earl Stewart,
I am opposed to old growth logging for 15 more years in the Tongass National Forest. Furthermore, allowing the harvest of 148.9 million board feet from approximately 6,186 acres of old-growth and 2,299 acres of young-growth near Thorne Bay and Coffman Cove on Prince of Wales Island within the Thorne Bay Ranger District is unacceptable. It is essential that the U.S. Forest Service halt the Big Thorne timber project, which threatens to destroy large swaths of essential Prince of Wales habitat for Alexander Archipelago wolves and their primary prey, Sitka black-tailed deer (Already the average distance to roads within GMU2 is 2.1 miles & only 1.7 miles on POW island itself. With such high road density already in place there is little secure habitat.The Big Thorne project will also create additional new logging roads, increasing human access and the associated hunting and trapping pressure on the imperiled island wolf populations).
Without any federal protection the only long-term solution to the Alexander Archipelago wolves’ peril is to stop old-growth logging in the Tongass National Forest and to preserve the last remaining big trees that wolves and so many other animals need. Without an end to old-growth logging, no amount of hunting regulations, alone, can save the wolves. Please transition away from old growth logging promptly, and please halt the timber sale on POW.
Thankyou for your time and consideration of this extremely important matter,
Your name
More information/talking points can be found here.
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