Tongass National Forest (Southeastern Alaska)

TONGASS NATIONAL FOREST

The Tongass National Forest in southeastern Alaska is the largest national forest in the United States at 17 million acres (69,000 km2). Most of its area is part of the temperate rain forest WWF ecoregion, itself part of the larger Pacific temperate rain forest WWF ecoregion, and is remote enough to be home to many species of endangered and rare flora and fauna. The Tongass, which is managed by the United States Forest Service, encompasses islands of the Alexander Archipelago, fjords and glaciers, and peaks of the Coast Mountains. An international border with Canada (British Columbia) runs along the crest of the Boundary Ranges of the Coast Mountains. The forest is administered from Forest Service offices in Ketchikan. There are local ranger district offices located in Craig, Hoonah, Juneau, Ketchikan, Petersburg, Sitka, Thorne Bay, Wrangell, and Yakutat.

The Alexander Archipelago Forest Reserve was established by Theodore Roosevelt in a presidential proclamation of 20 August 1902. Another presidential proclamation made by Roosevelt, on 10 September 1907, created the Tongass National Forest. On 1 July 1908, the two forests were joined, and the combined forest area encompassed most of Southeast Alaska. Further presidential proclamations of 16 February 1909 (in the last months of the Roosevelt administration) and 10 June, and in 1925 (by Calvin Coolidge) expanded the Tongass. An early supervisor of the forest was William Alexander Langille.

The Tongass National Forest is home to about 75,000 people who are dependent on the land for their livelihoods. Three Alaska Native nations live in Southeast Alaska: the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian. Thirty-one communities are located within the forest; the largest is Juneau, the state capital, with a population of 31,000. The forest is named for the Tongass group of the Tlingit people, who inhabited the southernmost areas of Southeast Alaska, near what is now the city of Ketchikan.

The Tongass includes parts of the Northern Pacific coastal forests and Pacific Coastal Mountain icefields and tundra ecoregions. Along with the Central and North Coast regions of British Columbia designated by environmental groups as the Great Bear Rainforest, the Tongass is part of the "perhumid rainforest zone", and the forest is primarily made up of western red cedar, sitka spruce, and western hemlock. The Tongass is Earth's largest remaining temperate rainforest. The terrain underlying the forest is divided between karst (limestone rock, well-drained soil, and many caves) and granite (poorly drained soil).

Unique and protected creatures seldom found anywhere else in North America inhabit the thousands of islands along the Alaska coast. Five species of salmon, brown and black bears, and bald eagles abound throughout the forest. Many migratory birds spend summer months nesting among the archipelago, notably the Arctic tern.

Though its land area is huge, about 40% of the Tongass is composed of wetlands, snow, ice, rock, and non-forest vegetation, while the remaining 10 million acres (40,000 km2) are forested. About 5 million acres (20,000 km2) are considered “productive old-growth”, and 4,500,000 acres (18,000 km2) of those are preserved as wilderness areas.

Historically, logging operations tended to concentrate on lower-elevation, bigger-tree ecosystems for harvesting; at present, approximately 78% of the land remains intact, i.e. 383,000 acres (1,550 km2) out of 491,000 acres (1,990 km2) original big-tree, low-elevation forest area. Given the high value of these areas for wildlife species, close to 70% of this old growth forest is protected in reserves and will never be eligible for harvest.

Major disturbances in the Tongass National Forest include windfall and landslides. Local winter windstorms referred to as the "Takus" can affect the structure of some stands and often cause single-tree blow-downs.

Of all the old growth in the forest, no more than 11% of the remaining area will ever be harvested. Of the 5,700,000 acres (23,000 km2) of "productive old-growth" in the forest, 676,000 acres (2,740 km2), or 12% of the total old-growth, are slated for harvest over the next 10 years. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia