Earlier this week, the Senate Resources Committee passed out a bill creating a new state forest in South-Central Alaska and, through language I worked with the bill sponsor to include, urging the Governor to acquire state lands from Southeast Alaska’s Tongass National Forest.
Senate Bill 159 designates over 760,000 acres of state land as the Susitna State Forest, making it the fourth state forest created in Alaska and the state’s second largest.
The bill also urges the Governor to negotiate with the federal government to “amend the Alaska Statehood Act for the purpose of acquiring on behalf of the state forest land currently in the Tongass National Forest.” Failing amendment of the Statehood Act, SB 159 further urges the Governor to “negotiate the purchase from the federal government of forest land currently in the Tongass.”
This language encouraging the state to either renegotiate statehood land entitlements or make an offer to flat-out purchase Tongass lands was inspired by my continued frustration with the federal government over land access and timber availability—or lack thereof—in Southeast Alaska.
The vast majority of forest lands in Southeast Alaska are part of the Tongass National Forest, which is managed by the U.S. Forest Service. Over the last several decades, political shifts in the Lower 48 have resulted in management objectives for the Tongass moving away from multiple-use and toward park management. This move has had profound effects on the population and economy of Southeast Alaska, which was once heavily based on timber harvesting and processing.
The termination of long-term federal timber contracts in the Tongass in the 1990s resulted in the closure of two pulp mills and several sawmills, the loss of thousands of jobs in Southeast Alaska, and an estimated 30% reduction in the overall economy of the region.
While I am realistic about the likelihood of the state acquiring or purchasing Tongass lands, I believe that in light of the state’s sizeable savings and the federal government’s current fiscal woes, if ever there was a time for Alaska to make an offer for the purchase of the Tongass, now would be it.
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