Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Beginning in the 1970s, a series of legislative and administrative decisions divided
stakeholders and, combined with extensive logging, led to bitter conflict about how
the resources of the Tongass should be managed. The Alaska Native Claims Settle-
ment Act of 1971 created twelve regional Native corporations across the state to settle
landownership disputes. In addition to Sealaska (the regional Native corporation), sev-
eral smaller village corporations were created and given land entitlements. The al-
location of 500,000 acres of some of the best old-growth timber in the region led to
corporations creating their own timber programs, which largely involved exporting
unprocessed logs overseas and significantly increased the overall regional timber har-
vest (Chadwick 2007). Almost all of the corporations quickly liquidated their timber,
adding to a growing expanse of clear-cuts.
In 1980, the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act set aside more than
104 million acres as designated wilderness, national parks, and other protected desig-
nations across the state, including 5.4 million acres on the Tongass. As part of a politi-
cal compromise for achieving these protections, a provision was added by Alaska's
congressional delegation mandating 450 million board feet of Tongass timber harvest
annually and an accompanying $40 million in federal appropriations. The ensuing,
rapidly expanding clear-cuts and road building began to influence both local and na-
tional consciousness (Durbin 1999). Environmental groups subsequently initiated a
lengthy campaign to remove the harvest and funding provisions, resulting in the 1990
Tongass Timber Reform Act, which repealed the 1980 provisions, added more wilder-
ness areas, and required more stringent environmental protections for timber harvest-
ing (Nie 2006). The region's two pulp mills closed within the next few years. While
environmentalists are frequently a scapegoat, the decline of the export market and
federal subsidies, along with environmental pollution violations by Ketchikan Pulp
Company, were significant factors in the pulp industry's demise.
While legislative direction has affected forest management, revisions to the Ton-
gass Land Management Plan have also been a routine source of conflict. Within a
span of eleven years, the U.S. Forest Service produced four different management
plans (in 1997, 1999, 2003, and 2008), each of which drew the ire of almost all sides.
The multiple iterations of the Tongass Land Management Plan, legislative fixes, and
lawsuits have all led to a deep mistrust among stakeholders. Coupled with the long
saga of whether the Tongass should be included in the Roadless Area Conservation
Rule implemented in 2001 by the Clinton administration, it is little wonder people
are tired and naturally questioning the best path forward.
Current Conditions
The natural resource, extraction-based economy that once dominated southeast
Alaska has fundamentally shifted in recent decades (Mazza 2004), and the timber
industry has been in steady decline for the last twenty years. The collapse of the ex-
port market for Tongass timber, the closure of the pulp mills, competitive disadvan-
tages, and the fact that Alaska is a high-cost producer of low-value timber have all
