The ongoing battle between logging and restoration in Tongass National Forest highlights climate injustice towards Indigenous Peoples and the worsening threat of climate change. In 2023, forest loss contributed to almost 6% of global carbon emissions; however, the clearing of old growth forests such as the Tongass present a much larger problem.
The Tongass National Forest in southern Alaska is the largest national forest in the United States and is the world's largest old-growth temperate rainforest. Some of the towering trees in the Tongass are more than 800 years old. Temperate rainforests are also known to hold more biomass per acre than any other environment in the world.
As trees photosynthesize, they remove carbon from the atmosphere. With no limit on how much carbon a tree can store throughout its lifetime, they are one of the best combatants against carbon emissions. As the trees grow older, their ability to store carbon grows exponentially, meaning in the fight against climate change, the oldest forests need the most protection.
Old-growth woodlands provide essential ecological services to their environments in the form of water filtration, managing runoff, nutrient cycling, and more. Clearcutting forests leads to erosion and deposits increased amounts of sediments, pollutants, and nutrients into water systems, which is devastating to aquatic wildlife. For example, salmon may be deprived of oxygen due to the higher concentrations of other nutrients in the water.
The Tongass is also important to the communities in the area, both economically and culturally. Indigenous groups such as the Tsimshian and Tlingit, have lived in the Tongass for thousands of years. Rising sea levels threaten their historic sites daily as erosion worsens often partially due to increased deforestation. Many Indigenous Peoples developed their connections to the Tongass through subsistence hunting and foraging. Today, many similarly support themselves through work catching salmon, which contributes largely to 30% of the annual catch in the western United States.
The Roadless Rule, first introduced in 2001, prevents logging in remote areas thus protecting millions of acres of U.S. national forests, including significant portions of the Tongass. The State of Alaska and the federal government have both pushed to reinstate the Tongass' exemption from the long-standing Roadless Rule.