FEDERATION OF WESTERN OUTDOOR CLUBS

---

FURTHER PROTECTION FOR THE TONGASS NATIONAL FOREST 

The 17 million acre Tongass National Forest in southeast Alaska is the largest national forest in the United States and includes the largest remaining temperate rainforest on earth. In May 2002, the Forest Service selected a "no action" alternative for the court- ordered Supplemental EIS to the 1997 forest plan for the Tongass. This alternative would designate no wilderness in the Tongass and would open three million acres of roadless lands to road building and logging.

Currently the Forest Service is moving ahead with 33 large-scale timber sales in roadless areas of the Tongass. Over the past forty-five years, the timber industry has clearcut more than one million acres of old growth in this forest and built nearly 5000 miles of logging roads. The Forest Service states that there are now more than 8.9 billion board feet available for cutting there using the existing road system.

To stop this destruction of this magnificent temperate rain forest, conservationists favor either alternative #6 or alternative #8, both of which would protect three million acres of roadless lands in the Tongass from logging and road building.

The Federation of Western Outdoor Clubs strongly supports wilderness or other protective designation banning logging and road building for the roadless areas of the Tongass National Forest.

Contact: Write to the Tongass National Forest Contents Analysis Team, U.S.D.A., P.O. Box 9079, Missoula, MT 59807 (fax: 406/329-3556) by August 17, 2002 asking that alternative #6 or #8 be selected for the Tongass Supplemental EIS and that no logging or road building be allowed in the roadless areas.