Tell the U.S. Forest Service: Hands Off America's Last Great Rainforest!

Tell the Chief of the U.S. Forest Service you've had enough of special deals that hasten destruction of the Tongass and other wildlands.

Sample Letter for Campaign

Subject: HANDS OFF AMERICA'S LAST GREAT RAINFOREST

Dear [ Decision Maker ] ,

Content Analysis Team Forest Service, USDA Attention: Roadless Interim Directives P.O. Box 221150 Salt Lake City, UT, 84122

RE: Interim Directives #'s 2400-2001-3 & 7710-2001-2

I write to strongly oppose any moves by the US Forest Service that authorize or expedite logging or road construction in wild, roadless portions of national forests, especially the Tongass rainforest. More than two million Americans have gone on record opposing roadless area development already, and for them and me the Tongass -- the biggest, wildest of national forests -- is the absolute last place to be making exceptions.

I ask that you not exempt any roadless areas in national forest from the Forest Service Chief's office review, and that you start respecting the overwhelming public support that wants America's national forests protected from further development. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Campaign Launched:
October 05, 2001

Background Information

The outlook is bleak for America's national forests. The U.S. Forest Service is rapidly abandoning its recent pro-conservation stance and is heading back to the old days when timber companies called the tune and the American public was silenced. Most threatened by this rollback is America's largest national forest and our nation's last great rainforest -- Alaska's Tongass National Forest.

You can help stop this threat. Through October 22nd, the Forest Service is taking public comment on its plan to reduce barriers to logging in untouched wildlands of the Tongass and a handful of other national forests. Use the form below to tell he Forest Service:

"Don't promote logging of our wild forests. No exceptions. Not now. Not ever. And especially not in the Tongass, our last great national rainforest."

BACKGROUND

At the heart of the world's largest remaining temperate rainforest, the Tongass National Forest spans 500 awe-inspiring miles of Alaska's coast. This land of ancient, moss-hung groves, misty isles, and hanging glaciers supports the world's largest breeding populations of grizzly bears and bald eagles. Its rivers teem with wild salmon. Wildness endures here as nowhere else among all our public forestlands.

At the start of this year, things were looking up for the Tongass. With input from many like you, the Forest Service adopted the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which prevents any new logging and road construction in undeveloped "roadless" areas nationwide. Nowhere was that more critical than the Tongass, with far and away the most roadless areas -- and the most roadless area logging planned -- of all national forests.

Now the Forest Service says it wants to make the Tongass and some other of our nation's most pristine national forests* ineligible for even a modest procedural protection by the Chief of the Forest Service. As a result, it will be much faster and easier to log these precious lands.

ACTION

Tell the Chief of the U.S. Forest Service you've had enough of special deals that hasten destruction of the Tongass and other wildlands.

* The Arapaho-Roosevelt, Black Hills, Caribbean, Florida, Francis Marion-Sumter, George Washington, Kisatchie, Medicine Bow-Routt, Rio Grande, Targhee, and Texas National Forests.