(Courtesy of Sitka Conservation Society)
Trout Unlimited and partner organizations are preparing to send a group of commercial fishermen, anglers, guides and yacht-tour operators to Washington, D.C., next month to push for stronger conservation of fish habitat in the Tongass National Forest of Southeast Alaska. The group will meet with key lawmakers and agency leaders to seek changes in the Forest Service budget for the Tongass, the country’s largest national forest and its top salmon producer. They will lobby for fish habitat conservation and watershed restoration to become top priorities for the Forest Service, reflected in the agency’s budget.
In a recent blog post, Sitka Conservation Society’s Andrianna Natsoulas wrote about why the Forest Service budget for the Tongass no longer makes sense as it emphasizes timber and road-building over fisheries, watersheds and restoration. It’s worth checking out.
By Bio Mess March 24, 2012 - 12:45 am
Why lobby for 77 watersheds that stand little risk of development anyway, when Trout knows full well there is a real monster lurking under the bed – S.730 – the Sealaska Lands Bill? The Sealaska bill will do more long-term damage than any trumped-up threat to salmon watersheds on the Tongass ever will.
Trout went limp long ago in exchange for mega foundation bucks to “collaborate” away our national forest. The end result of TU’s inaction on the precedent-setting Sealaska bill will be privatization of thousands of acres of the Tongass National Forest for clearcutting, highgrading of the biggest, most rare, cathedral-like stands of trees on the Tongass, and creation of thousands of acres of in-holdings throughout the forest. It will give away to a private corporation, millions of dollars worth of taxpayer-funded infrastructure like roads and bridges, and 50-plus years of national forest planning. It will throw the USFS transition under the bus and it won’t stop there.
Sealaska Corporation, who is behind this bill, is a native, for-profit corporation which has treated their native shareholders quite shabby, while earning massive profits for it’s Board of Directors:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sealaska-Shareholders-Underground/321563611783?sk=wall&filter=12
Meanwhile their land stewardship is abysmal at best:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRQre80IVj4
TU needs to tell Sealaska to quit trying to up the ante, by demanding lands that are far more valuable that the acres they are currently entitled:
http://ak.audubon.org/newsroom/press-releases/2012/report-sealaska-legislation-threatens-rare-tongass-rainforest-habitat
Sealaska could have their final land selections tomorrow, guaranteed to them under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) and already on file with the BLM. These selections were at their own request, yet the ink was no sooner dry when they began trying to cherry-pick even more of the Tongass to the detriment of not only the shareholders they represent but all Americans.
Most SE Alaska residents oppose this bill, and if it weren’t for the big green “collaborators” it would’ve been dead long ago. Time to knock it off TU and tell Betty and Gordon you don’t need their funding, because you have decided to take a real stand for the Tongass. Teddy would be proud.