Forwarded by Jane Clark at [log in to unmask]

Alaska's Tongass National Forest urgently needs your help! The Forest
Service has recommended EXCLUDING the Tongass -- our largest and wildest
national forest -- from President Clinton's plan to protect the remaining
roadless wildlands of our national forests. Any action on the Tongass issue
is deferred until 2004, when the Forest Service says it will do another
study. This recommendation is a dodge that makes absolutely NO commitment
to provide any additional protection for the Tongass.

Exempting the Tongass leaves a gaping hole in the President's roadless area
protection plan. The Tongass is the heart of the world's largest remaining
expanse of coastal temperate rainforest. Today, even with new management in
place, most Tongass logging will still take place in remote old-growth
wildlands, and efforts to increase cut levels are underway.

The Forest Service's recommendation must be improved in two ways:
· It must protect ALL National Forests immediately, INCLUDING the Tongass,
and
· The protections must stop logging, mining and other exploitation. The
Forest Service's version of the proposal would only stop new roads.
Helicopter logging and other damaging activities that don't require roads
could be permitted.

THIS IS A CRITICAL TIME FOR YOU TO SPEAK UP! The Forest Service is now
taking public comment on its version of the roadless area policy. A flood
of comments and testimony supporting the Tongass could help persuade
President Clinton to improve the Forest Service proposal and end logging in
roadless areas of the Tongass.

Here's how you can help:

*Send an official comment demanding that the new Forest Service policy
protect all remote wildlands of the Tongass and Chugach National Forests.
You can send a free fax directly to the Forest Service from www.akrain.org
or send a personalized letter to USFS Roadless DEIS Review Team, c/o Alaska
Rainforest Campaign, 406 G Street, #209, Anchorage, AK 99501 or by e-mail
to [log in to unmask]

**Call the President, toll-free, and tell him to protect the Tongass from
roadless area logging: 1-800-663-9566.

***Check the schedule of public hearings [HYPERLINK:
www.roadless.fs.fed.us] to find the one nearest you. Or call Alaska
Rainforest Campaign toll-free at 1-877-873-3725. Be sure to attend and
insist that the President's policy protect the Tongass - immediately - from
logging in roadless areas!


Talking Points:

The proposed alternative in the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for
protecting national forest roadless areas must be improved in two ways:

1. It must provide IMMEDIATE AND COMPLETE protection for Alaska's Tongass
National Forest and
2. It must protect ALL national forest roadless areas, including Alaska's
Tongass and Chugach, from logging and other exploitation, as well as new
roads.
======================================================
Forest Service Delivers Mere Shadow of Clinton Commitment to Protect Wild
Forests

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Forest Service released today its draft plan to
implement President Clinton's proposal to protect up to 60 million acres of
wild roadless forest. President Clinton has staked his conservation legacy
on this plan.  Environmental groups that have enthusiastically supported
the
Clinton vision, say the Forest Service's draft plan could compromise that
legacy.

"The Forest Service appears to have headed down the wrong path with this
proposal," said Ken Rait, director of the Heritage Forests Campaign, a
broad
coalition of local, state and national environmental groups pushing the
forest protection initiative.  "The American people support the vision that
President Clinton articulated in October.  What the Forest Service has
delivered is a proposal with logging truck-sized loopholes.  It allows the
logging of America's last wild roadless forests, and fails to provide any
protection whatsoever to the nation's largest wild forest and last
temperate
rain forest, the Tongass National Forest in Alaska.

Rait characterized the Forest Service plan as "a mere shadow of President
Clinton's announcement last October that was heralded as a bold step toward
the protection of America's forest legacy.  At this point the fate of the
forest lies in the hands of the American people and President Clinton.
Over
the next sixty days, the Forest Service will be taking public input on this
draft policy and hold about 400 public hearings throughout the country.
It's time for the American people to turn up the heat until the Forest
Service sees the light and protects our forests."  Rait noted that more
than
750,000 citizen comments - the vast majority of them in favor of ending all
logging in roadless forest areas - have flooded the Administration over the
past year.  Public opinion polls across the country have shown overwhelming
support for protecting roadless forests and ending logging in these last
wild places. (http://www.ourforest.org/info/policy/pollresults.htm)   "The
U.S. Forest Service needs to begin managing these areas according to the
will of the vast majority of Americans," said Rait.

 "The President's announcement last October was received as one of the most
broadly supported land conservation initiatives in the last 100 years,"
said
Rait.  "More than a dozen polls show strong support from every major
demographic group: Republicans and Democrats, soccer moms and hunters,
easterners and westerners, off-road vehicle riders and hikers, urban and
rural.  President Clinton must get the Forest Service on the right path if
he hopes to rescue his conservation legacy and our wild forests."

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