From the Alaska Wilderness League (http://www.alaskawild.org):
Check out Tuesday’s article in the Washington Post, which highlights the administration’s attempt to jumpstart industrial-scale old-growth logging in the last largely intact temperate rainforest in America, the Tongass National Forest in Southeast Alaska.
As the article notes, there’ll be a comment period in the weeks ahead when the administration’s logging road plan is released, but today, you can help stop this logging push and protect our largest national forest: Ask Congress to take action on the Roadless Area Conservation Act (H.R. 2491/S. 1311) at https://secure.everyaction.com/ZqtKH1r5Hk6Gcw-VCHOrJA2.
To protect our climate, we need an intact Tongass National Forest. Today, it stores 8% of the carbon of all U.S. forests, and if logging occurs, much of that stored carbon will be released into the atmosphere. We can’t afford that as Alaska and so many lands are catching fire, fueled by unprecedented droughts.
These simple bills would protect the current Roadless Rule from this and future attacks, ensuring protections for 9.5 million acres of the Tongass plus an additional 49 million acres nationwide.
The Roadless Rule protects critical fish and wildlife habitat around our country, like that of the iconic brown bear in Southeast Alaska. It protects uniquely Alaskan ways of life, like harvesting fish for food. It also has helped to bring an end to the long-running government tradition of subsidizing clear-cut logging by building a network of roads that later need to be maintained…and often fall in disrepair.
Let’s stop subsidizing the destruction of our public lands and our climate. Instead, let’s build a world that we are proud to pass on to the next generation, including intact public lands and a survivable climate. Click here to ask your lawmaker to support the Roadless Area Conservation Act.
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