Super Eco

Photo credit: kthom84, SXC

According to the Juneau Empire, the U.S. Forest Service has agreed to sell timber to a Ketchikan mill in a roadless area of the Tongass National Forest after approval for the sale from the Obama administration. From the Empire: "Orion North timber sale is the first such awarded since Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack announced in May he would personally review all timber sales in roadless areas of national forests in the next year. He's doing that while the Obama administration takes some time to review the Clinton-era Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which banned road-building on about 58 million acres of national forest land nationwide but has been challenged since it was issued."

A group called Roadless Now has been urging President Obama to fulfill campaign promises to protect roadless forests. The Tongass National Forest, a 17 million acre temperate rainforest in southeast Alaska, is the largest national forest in the United States. Most of its area is part of the temperate rain forest ecoregion and home to many species of endangered and rare flora and fauna. The forest is home to about 75,000 people who are dependent on the land for their livelihoods, including several Alaska Native tribes.

We'll be watching to see how this procedural tangle sorts itself out—and hoping that the logging remains minimal, in the meantime ...