Old-growth logging proposed in Tongass National Forest plan

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) – The U.S. Forest Service has proposed harvesting as much as 225 million board feet of old growth timber on a patchwork of Tongass National Forest lands in southeast Alaska.

KTOO Public Media in Juneau reports the Forest Service will publish its draft decision Friday on the Prince of Wales Landscape Level Analysis Project, opening up a 45-day period for people to raise objections.

The Forest Service says the project aims to improve forest ecosystem health as well as boost the local economy.

Forest Service project manager Delilah Brigham says the timber harvest under the plan will be gradual, so “it’s not going to be harvested all right now within one year.”

Critics say the plan is a reversal of the agency’s 2016 decision to phase out old-growth logging.
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Information from: KTOO-FM, http://www.ktoo.org