Administration Removing Protections from Tongass National Forest

Best part
"Logging in Alaska costs U.S. taxpayers millions each year, because of a long-standing federal mandate that companies profit from any timber sale. This means the Forest Service often covers harvesters’ costs, including road building. According to a Taxpayer for Common Sense analysis of the Forest Service’s accounts, the Tongass timber program has lost roughly $1.7 billion over the last 40 years."

Then
"Trump administration believes “that overall reduction in federal regulations is good for the American public due to reduced burden to the taxpayer and reduced burden to business.”"

This is the escence of 'Jobs,Jobs,Jobs'. We need to tax the worker because we don't want to tax the business. In this case, we will even pay timber companies to cut timber, which leads them to not worry about costs at all because they are borne by the citizens. We are destroying pristine natural areas and paying companies to do it.
 
Ok I’m asking a literal question and this is not to bash any politician or anyone’s stance on the issue. I just got to know how is this logging a good idea in any way shape or form? I guess what I mean is how could anyone think it was a good idea besides those it specifically benefits?
 
I guess what I mean is how could anyone think it was a good idea besides those it specifically benefits?
I chuckled, but then remembered you said it was as legit question. Because those look at the picture from 10,000ft and say "good thing- utilization of America's natural resources". The problem is it is difficult to see the whole picture when you start peeling back the complex layers of the onion. The end answer is always the same - follow the money.
 
Ok I’m asking a literal question and this is not to bash any politician or anyone’s stance on the issue. I just got to know how is this logging a good idea in any way shape or form? I guess what I mean is how could anyone think it was a good idea besides those it specifically benefits?

In this specific instance, it isn't. It's the last intact temperate rainforest in America and we want to trash it for short term gains.

That's pretty on-brand for the USA though.
 
I chuckled, but then remembered you said it was as legit question. Because those look at the picture from 10,000ft and say "good thing- utilization of America's natural resources". The problem is it is difficult to see the whole picture when you start peeling back the complex layers of the onion. The end answer is always the same - follow the money.
Yea to me I was seeing it as a disaster but I’m trying to figure out what I’m missing that could make it a good idea. Guess I was right. No amount of money is worth destroying pristine wilderness to me.
 
Pump the breaks a bit, the OP here in WA is just as good, all be it smaller.
Hunting the OP is a bucket list for me, really don’t care if I even see something, flying over to AK it takes my breath away every time.

Logging. Every time we have a thread about it I am reminded it’s nuanced like everything.

I definitely don’t like the idea of logging the Tongass.

@BuzzH and @BigHornRam always interested in your perspectives.
 
Hunting the OP is a bucket list for me, really don’t care if I even see something, flying over to AK it takes my breath away every time.

Logging. Every time we have a thread about it I am reminded it’s nuanced like everything.

I definitely don’t like the idea of logging the Tongass.

@BuzzH and @BigHornRam always interested in your perspectives.
Not much of the cool stuff you can hunt as it's in the park. The non-park stuff has pretty much all been cut out side of a couple of small wilderness areas. But they are cool.

If you want a really cool experience, steelhead in March or April, in the Park, that's where it's at. Or backpack the coast section. Seeing giant roosevelts on the beach is pretty damn cool.
 
Not much of the cool stuff you can hunt as it's in the park. The non-park stuff has pretty much all been cut out side of a couple of small wilderness areas. But they are cool.

If you want a really cool experience, steelhead in March or April, in the Park, that's where it's at. Or backpack the coast section. Seeing giant roosevelts on the beach is pretty damn cool.

The Roosevelt in the dining room of the Crescent Lake Lodge is something to behold. Finding a giant like that in the Hoh or similar environs would be other-worldly.
 
Looking at the map, about half the forest is park or wilderness.
20201029_102922.jpg
Curious how much of the areas Trump wants to reopen to logging are second growth? I read some of the authors other articles and they are what I suspected. Full of agenda and misleading information. That said I will leave it up to the Alaska residents to fight this one out. My focus is on forest issues closer to home.
 
Looking at the map, about half the forest is park or wilderness.
View attachment 160046
Curious how much of the areas Trump wants to reopen to logging are second growth? I read some of the authors other articles and they are what I suspected. Full of agenda and misleading information. That said I will leave it up to the Alaska residents to fight this one out. My focus is on forest issues closer to home.
I've noticed in places where trees grow fast, many people can't tell 100 yr old second growth from old growth.
 
I would rather they logged it and utilized the trees instead of letting them stand to get blown down by high winds and rotting. I have been there several times. Thats what happens in old growth timber that is a 100 + years old.

We have such a shortage of lumber right now in the US its pathetic. I am tired of the east cost trees being cut to be put on trucks and shipped to comifornia, Oregon, and Washington to re-build houses that have burned because of their liberal policies when they have renewal resources just to the north of them.
 
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100 yrs ain't even close to old growth. I surveyed in the OP every summer for 4 years. Those trees were ancient when old Chris Columbus f-ed up and mistook the Bahamas for Asia.

The bigger cripe might be that old Weyerhauser keeps turning timber land into ranchetes in western OR and WA, because they can never have enough money, instead of managing a forest to pump out millions of board feet of renewable resources.
 
When I was on my last bear hunt on POW we had a cabin next to some guys that were there logging. It was very interesting talking to them about the big differences between logging there and a typical western mountain forest. They have to include a thinning after they do a cut where the come back and thin out most of the thousands of volunteer trees coming back up. In the typical western forest they actually have to go back in and plant trees. The road building there is completely different too. They have to build pretty much a real road with a rock base and the whole works, not just flatten out a ledge with a bulldozer.

With all that said, it seems insane to spend billions of taxpayer dollars so that lumber companies can make a profit logging public land. Although I don't think grazing on BLM and Forest Service land is something that actually makes a profit when it is all said and done either.
 
I am tired of the east cost trees being cut to be put on trucks and shipped to comifornia, Oregon, and Washington to re-build houses that have burned because of their liberal policies
Specifically which policies are causing homes to burn?
 
I would rather they logged it and utilized the trees instead of letting them stand to get blown down by high winds and rotting. I have been there several times. Thats what happens in old growth timber that is a 100 + years old.

We have such a shortage of lumber right now in the US its pathetic. I am tired of the east cost trees being cut to be put on trucks and shipped to comifornia, Oregon, and Washington to re-build houses that have burned because of their liberal policies when they have renewal resources just to the north of them.
1603993825515.jpeg
 

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