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." - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To get off the IOWA-TOPICS list, send any message to: [log in to unmask]