Yellow Cedar Export
Dear Editor: A troubling practice has been taking place within Alaska’s timber industry: we are allowing the export of our valuable yellow cedar. This sad policy has been in place for over a decade.
Last month, the U.S. Forest Service released the Environmental Impact Statement for the Saddle Lakes Timber Sale near Ketchikan. This sale will allow 100 percent of Alaskan yellow cedar to be exported abroad. Why are we exporting some of Alaska’s rarest and most valuable timber (in the form of raw round logs, no less) when we can and should process yellow cedar to its highest and best capacity here in Alaska?
Alaskan yellow cedar is one of our most important local resources. Indigenous people have relied on yellow cedar for centuries, using the roots, bark, trunk, and leaves of cedar trees for a variety of purposes. As the owner of Southeast Cedar Homes, a construction company specializing in custom-built, local-wood homes, I too recognize the importance of Alaskan yellow cedar. My business and others here in Southeast depend on this species in our day to day business operations. Yellow cedar trees are renowned for their beauty and are naturally resistant to rot and disease. These qualities make yellow cedar an ideal building material in Southeast Alaska and I continue to use yellow cedar in all of the homes I build.
However, while yellow cedar has the possibility to contribute to Southeast Alaska’s economy, we have failed to recognize its worth. Yellow cedar is a globally rare commodity – it exists in only a few places in the United States. It also takes a very long time to grow and is currently in decline. Yellow cedar trees are dying at an alarming rate in Alaska because their roots are freezing during the winter (with climate change, warmer winters lead to less snow cover, leaving cedar roots exposed to the cold). Many scientists have recommended that yellow cedar be added to the Endangered Species Act, as large yellow cedar die-off has been recorded over nearly 500,000 acres.
It’s time to put a stop to the exportation of one of Southeast Alaska’s most valuable and useful timber resources. The government and the Forest Service should be doing all they can to keep the profits from yellow cedar in the region and manage it so that we can benefit from this resource and make it last as long as possible. It would be foolish for a business owner like me to have to buy Alaskan yellow cedar from timber merchants and processors located outside of Alaska. But if the Forest Service continues with their policies on Tongass timber export, middle-man timber operations will make profits while the people of Southeast Alaska will be deprived of the potential benefits of our yellow cedar and soon there will be none left.
Marcel LaPerriere, Sitka
Tracing Roots Thanks
Dear Editor: We want to thank everyone who helped make last weekend’s local premiere of “Tracing Roots: A Weaver’s Journey” such a special event.
We packed the theater and ran out of seats.
There’s nothing quite like sharing a long-in-the-making film with a crowd; faces coming into a theater, locals buying popcorn, sitting in the dark, laughing in all the hoped-for places and taking in the story together.
That would have not been possible without: the Coliseum Theater and Scott Bowen with additional techincal support from J Bradley.
Thanks to Pauline and Al Duncan for hosting Delores and to the Alaska State Museums for covering our travel expenses for both the Sitka and Juneau events.
Thanks, Shannon and Sitka Film Society, for co-hosting the screening, and to KCAW, KIFW, KCAW, the Sitka Daily Sentinel and others for getting the word out. A big thanks to Ashia and Old Harbor Books for a lovely reception after the screening.
Thanks also to the Sitka Conservation Society, the Greater Sitka Arts Council, Sitka Tribe of Alaska, and the University of Alaska Southeast for being part of this for a mix of helping us start the project, doing outreach for the screening and including us in Native Heritage Month events. Thanks to the board members of Artchange Inc. and everyone who helped support the creation of “Tracing Roots,” a story about weaving, a mystery, a portrait of an individual and a film about heritage and connecting to the place we live.
Stay tuned for an encore local screening and let your friends and family know the film will be at the Burke Museum in Seattle this Sunday, Nov. 23!
We welcome ideas for using the film.
Feel free to contact us and check out the screening schedule at www.tracingrootsfilm.com
Thanks, Háw’aa.
Delores Churchill,
Ellen Frankenstein
‘‘Tracing Roots’’
Renewable Energy
Dear Editor: As the Tongass Advisory Committee meets here in Sitka this week, I would encourage them to visit the Blue Lake hydro project which had its new turbines turned on last week. They should pay attention to the project because it is on Tongass National Forest land.
While the Tongass Advisory Committee and the Forest Service spend most of their time and money talking about continuing old growth clearcutting and trying to keep a dying industry alive, communities like Sitka are making good investments in the future. These investments take action on climate change and provide renewable energy to our community and get us away from the price volatility, conflict, and environmental harms caused by oil. Meanwhile, the Forest Service is looking to the past rather than the future.
When Secretary of Agriculture Vilsack announced the Tongass transition back in 2010, he said that the Forest Service was going to help with ‘‘small hydroelectric projects and bioenergy, to provide lower cost energy and bring down the costs of doing business in Southeast Alaska.’’
Instead, the Forest Service has continued to do business as usual and puts most of its staff and budget towards exporting round logs to Asia. Instead of subsidizing these businesses, why isn’t the Forest Service supporting community investments like Sitka’s Blue Lake project which show how we can use Tongass National Forest land and resources to really benefit our community and what a good investment looks like.
It is a shame that logging wasn’t done with long-term sustainable yield in mind and instead was done with a boom-and-bust mentality that long-ago liquidated the best timber. We have to live today with the decisions made in the past, but we don’t have to continue to make these mistakes. The Tongass Advisory Committee that is meeting this week in Sitka needs to shift direction on the Tongass and move away from its timber-only mentality. We must look at other management directions like the renewable energy projects that Sitka has already shown are the priority.
Judi Lehmann, Sitka
Seafood Raffle
Dear Editor: The Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association thanks residents of Sitka for their generous support of our annual seafood raffle. The raffle was a huge success, raising important revenue to further ALFA’s mission of promoting healthy fisheries and strong fishing communities.
Five lucky people each won a 10-pound box of premium Alaska seafood, with each box containing king salmon, blackcod, halibut and rockfish. This week the boxes will be federal expressed free to the winners or the friend or relative they designate.
ALFA offers special thanks to Dick Curran, George Eliason, Kelsey Skordahl, Phil Wyman and Calvin Robinson for donating the high-quality fish for the raffle and to Sitka Sound Seafoods and Seafood Producers Cooperative for donating the processing. Thanks also to ALFA members and local businesses who sold raffle tickets over the summer and fall. ALFA’s annual seafood raffle would not be possible without your ongoing support.
Again, thank you for supporting the Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association and, if you missed the raffle, watch for next year’s opportunity to take a chance on great seafood.
Linda Behnken, Brandie Cheatham, ALFA
www.alfafish.org
