{"id":5688,"date":"2021-07-28T22:34:28","date_gmt":"2021-07-28T22:34:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=5688"},"modified":"2021-07-28T22:34:28","modified_gmt":"2021-07-28T22:34:28","slug":"biden-plans-to-reverse-trumps-alaska-policy-heres-why-it-matters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=5688","title":{"rendered":"Biden plans to reverse Trump\u2019s Alaska policy. Here\u2019s why it matters."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\n“the Biden administration revealed plans to reinstate<\/a> environmental protections preventing logging and mining in Alaska\u2019s Tongass National Forest, which the Trump administration had discarded. The 17 million acres in southeastern Alaska \u2014 the largest national forest in the US \u2014 have been a political battleground for over two decades, bouncing back and forth between the interests of logging industries and climate activists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2001, President Bill Clinton finalized the \u201croadless rule,\u201d which prohibited road construction on 60 million acres of forested land across the US and heavily restricted commercial logging and mining. But in October of 2020, then-President Donald Trump reversed these protections when he made the Tongass Forest exempt from the rule<\/a>, doing what many developers and politicians in Alaska had been calling for since the Clinton era.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“While politicians paint a picture of an oppressive federal government that would deny normal Alaskans access to \u201cjobs and prosperity,\u201d the narrative rings a bit hollow when set against actual feedback from the public.In 2019, the US Forest Service released a summary<\/a> of over 140,000 comments on the \u201croadless rule\u201d from the public which overwhelmingly supported the restrictions on forest development. In fact, one of the main points of rationale as to why the public thinks the \u201croadless rule\u201d should remain was that it is vital to the tourism and fishing industries.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“In addition to providing jobs, as the United States\u2019 largest national forest<\/a>, the Tongass plays a significant ecological role in absorbing carbon produced in the US. According to National Geographic<\/a>, the temperate rainforest absorbs approximately 8 percent of the pollution produced in the US. \u201cWhile tropical rainforests are the lungs of the planet, the Tongass is the lungs of North America,\u201d Dominick DellaSala, chief scientist with the Earth Island Institute\u2019s Wild Heritage project, told the Washington Post<\/a>. In fact, the United States Geological Survey recently estimated that if no trees were lost through logging and the land were left unmanaged in the Tongass, its carbon storage could increase by up to 27 percent<\/a> by the end of the century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Tongass is also home to a thriving wildlife population, but Trump\u2019s reversal of the \u201croadless rule\u201d put this in danger. On land, the state of Alaska is home to 95 percent<\/a> of America\u2019s brown bear population, and the Tongass specifically contains the highest concentration of brown bears on the planet, while the forest\u2019s 17,000 miles of clean freshwater<\/a> provide optimal spawning conditions for wild salmon. Due to its high populations, the Tongass is sometimes called a \u201csalmon forest<\/a>\u201d and, as it produces $60 million<\/a> of wild salmon annually, this name is not far-fetched. But, if not for the \u201croadless rule,\u201d this might have changed. Logging around a stream causes runoff like silt or dirt<\/a> into the water, which can smother developing eggs, while dams, often used to maneuver logs down waterways, disorient the fish and disrupt their natural migratory patterns”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“While this is a loss that can affect any Alaskan, to AlaskanNatives, losing wild salmon and the forests that house them means much more than a declining food source. Twenty-three percent<\/a> of the region\u2019s population comes from the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian tribes, who have been fighting for recognition and for better treatment of their ancestral land which includes the expansive Tongass Forest.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.vox.com\/2021\/6\/12\/22530771\/biden-alaska-tongass-national-forest-repeal-replace-trump-policy<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“the Biden administration revealed plans to reinstate environmental protections preventing logging and mining in Alaska\u2019s Tongass National Forest, which the Trump administration had discarded. The 17 million acres in southeastern Alaska \u2014 the largest national forest in the US \u2014 have been a political battleground for over two decades, bouncing back and forth between the interests of logging industries and climate activists.<\/p>\n

In 2001, President Bill Clinton finalized the \u201croadless rule,\u201d which prohibited road construction on 60 million acres of forested land across the US and heavily restricted commercial logging and mining. But in October of 2020, then-President Donald Trump reversed these protections when he made the Tongass Forest exempt from the rule, doing what many developers and politicians in Alaska had been calling for since the Clinton era.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“While politicians paint a picture of an oppressive federal government that would deny normal Alaskans access to \u201cjobs and prosperity,\u201d the narrative rings a bit hollow when set against actual feedback from the public. In 2019, the US Forest Service released a summary of over 140,000 comments on the \u201croadless rule\u201d from the public which overwhelmingly supported the restrictions on forest development. In fact, one of the main points of rationale as to why the public thinks the \u201croadless rule\u201d should remain was that it is vital to the tourism and fishing industries.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“In addition to providing jobs, as the United States\u2019 largest national forest, the Tongass plays a significant ecological role in absorbing carbon produced in the US. According to National Geographic, the temperate rainforest absorbs approximately 8 percent of the pollution produced in the US. \u201cWhile tropical rainforests are the lungs of the planet, the Tongass is the lungs of North America,\u201d Dominick DellaSala, chief scientist with the Earth Island Institute\u2019s Wild Heritage project, told the Washington Post. In fact, the United States Geological Survey recently estimated that if no trees were lost through logging and the land were left unmanaged in the Tongass, its carbon storage could increase by up to 27 percent by the end of the century.<\/p>\n

The Tongass is also home to a thriving wildlife population, but Trump\u2019s reversal of the \u201croadless rule\u201d put this in danger. On land, the state of Alaska is home to 95 percent of America\u2019s brown bear population, and the Tongass specifically contains the highest concentration of brown bears on the planet, while the forest\u2019s 17,000 miles of clean freshwater provide optimal spawning conditions for wild salmon. Due to its high populations, the Tongass is sometimes called a \u201csalmon forest\u201d and, as it produces $60 million of wild salmon annually, this name is not far-fetched. But, if not for the \u201croadless rule,\u201d this might have changed. Logging around a stream causes runoff like silt or dirt into the water, which can smother developing eggs, while dams, often used to maneuver logs down waterways, disorient the fish and disrupt their natural migratory patterns”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“While this is a loss that can affect any Alaskan, to Alaskan Natives, losing wild salmon and the forests that house them means much more than a declining food source. Twenty-three percent of the region\u2019s population comes from the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian tribes, who have been fighting for recognition and for better treatment of their ancestral land which includes the expansive Tongass Forest.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[1167,103,780],"class_list":["post-5688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-alaska","tag-environment","tag-joe-biden"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5688"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5688\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5689,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5688\/revisions\/5689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}