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The Tongass is America’s largest national forest.
(Brian Logan / U.S. Forest Service)
Press Release January 30, 2024

Alaska Native Tribes, Southeast Alaska Businesses and Forest Advocates Defend Tongass National Forest’s Roadless Rule

Legal intervention seeks to retain forest protections that support Tribes, communities, and sustainable local economies

Press Release: Victory January 25, 2023

U.S. Forest Service restores critical protections to Tongass National Forest

The National Roadless Rule was rolled back for America’s last great rainforest by the Trump administration, threatening millions of acres of undeveloped national forest lands

Document January 30, 2024

Motion to Intervene to Defend Tongass Roadless Rule

A broad coalition of Alaska Native Tribes, commercial fishers, small tourism businesses, conservation groups, and other forest advocates are seeking to defend the reinstatement of National Roadless Rule protections across the Tongass National Forest in Southeast Alaska by intervening in several legal challenges opposing the rule.

Press Release December 23, 2020

Lawsuit Takes Aim at Trump Administration Decision to Gut Tongass National Forest Protections

Time is running out to curb carbon emissions, but Tongass logging will only make climate change worse

feature January 25, 2023

This Dreamy Alaskan Rainforest is a Buffer Against Climate Change

Thanks to collective advocacy, 9 million acres of Tongass National Forest are no longer threatened by new clear-cut logging.

A waterfall in Southeast Alaska's Tongass National Forest.
(Howie Garber Photography)
Press Release October 15, 2019

Trump Administration Paves Way for Old-growth Clearcutting in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest

Forest Service proposal would gut protections across 9 million acres of America’s largest national forest

A Bureau of Land Management-maintained forest in Oregon. (Bureau of Land Management)
Press Release February 2, 2024

Forest Service Urged to Bolster Protections for Forests in Proposed Policy

Comments call for addressing major gaps on selling old growth and protecting mature forests

Located in Alaska's panhandle, the Tongass is the country's largest national forest—and home to nearly one-third of all old-growth temperate rainforest remaining in the entire world.
(Lee Prince / Shutterstock)
case April 23, 2021

Defending Roadless Areas in the Tongass National Forest

Situated in the southeast corner of Alaska, the Tongass National Forest is a temperate rainforest and the ancestral homeland of the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian peoples. The islands, fjords, glaciers, and muskegs that make up the Tongass — nation’s largest national forest — provide some of the most rare and intact ecosystems in the world,…

Alaska’s Tongass National Forest is a vast temperate rainforest. It provides critical wildlife habitat and attracts visitors from around the world.
(Howie Garber Photography)
Press Release December 16, 2019

Trump Administration Blasted for Plan to Allow Old-growth Clearcutting in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest

More than 400,000 comments sent to U.S. Forest Service in defense of cherished national forest

The Cheswick Generating Station in 2010. Prior to the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, oil-burning and coal-burning power plants largely avoided restrictions on emissions of hazardous air pollution. (Chris Jordan-Bloch / Earthjustice)
feature March 6, 2024

Historic Environmental Protections are Up Against the Deadline

The Biden administration must get rulemakings over the finish line this spring to solidify climate and health protections ahead of political uncertainty.

Press Release June 11, 2021

Biden Administration Takes Action to Protect Tongass National Forest

U.S. Forest Service revisits Trump rollback of Roadless Rule

Press Release November 19, 2021

Forest Service Releases Plan for Roadless Rule Restoration in Tongass National Forest

Support remains strong for protecting old-growth trees in Southeast Alaska

Southeast Alaskans rallied in Juneau on June 22.
(Photo by Colin Arisman)
Press Release June 24, 2019

Southeast Alaskans Rally to Defend the Tongass and the Roadless Rule

Local leaders, Alaska Native people, and community members gathered to double down on support for the existing Roadless Rule in the Tongass National Forest

Press Release April 6, 2021

50 Organizations Call on President Biden to Protect Tongass National Forest and Carbon-rich Forests Under U.S. Climate Commitments

Biden administration expected to release international climate commitments ahead of Earth Day summit on April 22

Press Release July 15, 2021

U.S. Forest Service Looks to Reestablish Safeguards Against Logging in Tongass National Forest

Forest Service announcement is a win for climate

Adrien Nichol Lee, keeper of cultural Tlingit education and president of the Alaska Native Sisterhood Camp 12, is traveling to D.C. on behalf of the WECAN Indigenous Women's Tongass Delegation.
(Melissa Lyttle for Earthjustice)
Press Release November 12, 2019

USFS, Lawmakers to Hear Alaska Native, Southeast Alaskan Perspectives on Newest Threat to Tongass National Forest

A broad range of stakeholders facing harm from proposed Roadless Rule exemption travel to D.C. to explain impact

Logjam Creek at Prince of Wales Island, Alaska.
(Steve Howard / Getty Images)
case: Victory May 11, 2021

Challenging a Massive Timber Sale on Prince of Wales Island in the Tongass National Forest

A coalition of rainforest defenders, represented by Earthjustice, successfully halted a massive commercial timber sale on Prince of Wales Island in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest. The U.S. Forest Service had green-lighted a sweeping 15-year logging scheme over a 1.8-million-acre project area across Prince of Wales and surrounding islands, part of a program dubbed the Prince…

“The roadless rule will help small businesses like ours,” said Hunter McIntosh of The Boat Company, which operates a small tour business in the region. “The natural values of intact watersheds are essential for the visitor industry in Southeast Alaska. Very few folks will pay to go see clearcuts and decaying logging roads. There are thousands of jobs in Southeast Alaska in recreation and tourism. And there are thousands more in the seafood industry, which depends critically on salmon spawning streams in the old growth forests of the Tongass.”
(NancyS / Shutterstock)
Press Release: Victory July 29, 2015

Ninth Circuit Ensures Protection of Roadless Areas in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest

Court rejects attempts to exempt the Tongass from the Roadless Rule