Dear Editor: The Forest Service is holding a community workshop on April 27 at Harrigan Centennial Hall from 4 to 6 p.m. to gather public comments on its proposed changes to the Tongass National Forest Land and Resource Management Plan, which is in the process of being rewritten.
In 2024 the Forest Service gathered extensive input from residents, experts, scientists, tribes, and businesses to get public input on their management process going forward.
The revised plan this year has changed significantly from that input because it now prioritizes President Trump’s Executive Orders 14153 and 14225. Those orders place timber and mining resource extraction as the primary economic driver of local and regional economic health.
Examples of what that change looks like: The new category, “General Forest” would allow logging on Mt. Edgecumbe and Kruzof Island. Shoals Point is designated as a “High Commercial Recreation Use” area where a cruise ship corporation could get a permit to build an amusement park with a zip line and trinket shops.
The new proposal prioritizes industrial scale clear-cut logging of old growth. It does little to address our real economic drivers in Southeast.
Your comments, and your presence are very important.
I’ll be going to the public meeting and sharing my concerns and I would encourage all other Sitkans who use and depend on Tongass resources to do the same.
Marian Allen, Sitka
