Tongass National Forest-Alaska

My father has been reading National Geographic magazine for years now, and I’ve always had an interest in it. After all they have spectacular photos in it from places that most of us will never be able to visit and some places we’ve probably never heard of before.
I barrowed one copy from July 2007 that had an article in it that made me think and also surprised me. I don’t consider myself to be uninformed, but I did not know that the Tongass National Forest in south-eastern Alaska has logging rites that are sold off each year so that the trees may be cut, ground down for pulp and then sold off-typically exported. Besides this news I was unhappy to learn that some of the areas that are sold have some of the oldest trees in the forest and perhaps in North America. Some of the Spruce trees in the forest may live to be a thousand years old.
“Both yellow cedars and western red cedars live at least a thousand years… Their trunks were so stout the three of us joining hands couldn't have encircled one.” Tongass National Forest - National Geographic Magazine
This article is not simply a “tree-hugger” who is upset over the cutting of old-growth trees in the forest, but someone who is presenting the larger picture. By cutting the old growth trees-which is only about 4% of the entire forest-the entire ecosystem is being changed and not necessarily for the good. The new growth forest that takes it’s place amounts to thick shrubs and bush that after a few years no one get through-human or animal. The habitat that was previously home for bears, dear, eagles and other animals are now gone. The wildlife must move and the resources that we thought we renewable are not, as the new growth will never in our lifetime come close to providing what the old growth does now.
There are organizations that are fighting to save at least some of the old-growth forest in Tongass. I would love to visit Alaska one day to see not only the grandeur of it’s mountains, but the exceptional beauty of what amounts to a rain forest in the northern part of North America.

Tongass National Forest - National Geographic Magazine
http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0707/feature4/index.html

National Geographic Magazine
http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/ngm.html

National Geographic
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/

Wednesday September 26th, 2007