[pct-l] Roadless Plan released-Tongass cutting continues

The USFS has released its Final Environmental Impact 
Statement on protecting
roadless area in our national forests.  The preferred 
alternative allows
clearcut logging and road contsruction to continue in 
Alaska's Tongass until
April 2004 when the roadless policy would apply to the 
Tongass.  (See press
release below for details.)

While this is the USFS's preferred alternative, 
President Clinton still has 30
days to review the policy before making a final 
decision.  In these last 30 days
it is crucial that the President hear from you.

Please:

1) Call the White House toll free at 1-800-663-9566, 
dial "0" to leave a message
with an operator urging FULL and IMMEDIATE protection 
for Alaska's Tongass in
the President's Roadless Policy. 2004 is too late!

2) Write President Clinton:
1600 Pennsylvania Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20500



Roadless Plan Leaves Tongass at Risk
World's largest temperate rainforest denied immediate 
protection

WASHINGTON DC: Clearcutting will continue unabated in 
the wildlands of Alaska's
Tongass Rainforest until 2004 according to the Forest 
Service's near-final plan
for protecting roadless areas, released on Monday. The 
Tongass is the only
national forest denied full and immediate protection 
under the Forest Service
plan. The Clinton Administration has 30 days to make 
changes before the roadless
area rules are finalized, and conservationists across 
the country are calling on
President Clinton to fully include the Tongass.

 "With a hostile presidential administration 
potentially on the horizon, the
Tongass now more than ever needs full and immediate 
protection," said Marty
Hayden of the Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund in 
Washington D.C.

 "Protecting the Tongass in 2004 is an improvement over 
the earlier version,
which completely excluded the Tongass," said Matt 
Zencey of the Alaska
Rainforest Campaign based in Anchorage. "But exempting 
the Tongass for four
years will devastate huge tracts of irreplaceable old 
growth. Five hundred
million board feet are on the block between now and 
then."

Zencey noted that 80 percent of all new logging roads 
in national forest
roadless areas are planned in the Tongass. In addition, 
half of all roadless
area logging in national forests is scheduled to come 
from the Tongass.

The President, in announcing the policy over a year 
ago, said the guiding
principle for roadless area management should be "…
science not politics."  The
scientific community says that good science means 
protecting the Tongass.
Internationally-renowned biologist Dr. E.O. Wilson of 
Harvard and 330 other
scientists signed a letter to the President 
saying, "There is no scientific
basis for excluding the Tongass," and exclusion "would 
severely compromise the
scientific legitimacy of any national policy on the 
protection of roadless areas
in the national forest system."

The public also wants full protection for the Tongass. 
During public comment on
the roadless area policy, the Forest Service received a 
record-breaking one
million public comments, urging the agency to stop 
roadless areas logging in the
Tongass.

To speak with someone directly please e-mail 
info@akrain.org or call
907-222-2552.

Thanks for your support.

Alaska Rainforest Campaign Staff.

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