Roadless areas in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest provide a plethora of “long-term life support benefits to society as a whole,” but logging should still be allowed in all those areas, the U.S. Forest Service said in a draft plan.
The best use of Tongass is to open more than 9 million acres of some of North America’s most carbon-dense forests to loggers and new roads, according to a draft environmental impact statement that exempts the entire forest from the 2001 Roadless Rule. The Trump administration justified the move as a way to spur the logging industry and create jobs.
The ...