Opinions

Environmental groups' Big Thorne lawsuit just another attempt to squash logging

Last October the Forest Service awarded the Big Thorne timber sale to Viking Lumber of Klawock. The action came after more than a year's delay. The sale's implementation is still held up by an environmental lawsuit challenging the Big Thorne contract.

The Big Thorne stewardship timber contract awarded to Viking would allow harvesting of 97 million board feet. The irony is that the current management plan for the Tongass as prepared by the Forest Service calls for harvesting up to 267 million board feet. Nevertheless, this reduced figure would allow Southeast Alaska's only remaining medium-sized sawmill to continue operations. (In the 1970s and '80s, Southeast Alaska had two pulp mills and eight sawmills. Now only one medium-sized sawmill remains.)

The environmental groups' litigation strategy is to stop the harvest of old-growth timber in roadless areas until they achieve an amendment to the 2008 Amended Forest Plan that limits timber harvest to second growth in roadless areas -- the so-called Transition Plan. The Transition Plan is dependent upon implementation of changes to current rules that timber not be harvested until it reaches its rotation age (90-100 years in the Tongass). Best forest practices, such as the Forest Service's non-declining even-flow measure of sustained yield, the Tongass Timber Reform Act's stream buffer rules, or the TLMP's prohibition on harvesting within 1,000 feet of the beach, will have to be changed to achieve the Transition Plan. Harvesting timber from these areas is almost certain to invite further litigation from the same environmental groups.

The environmental groups' main contention in the Big Thorne litigation is that timber harvest will threaten wolf population viability on Prince of Wales Island (Game Management Unit 2). The newly named "Alexander Archipelago Wolf" is allegedly a subspecies of the timber wolf, which the environmentalists want listed under the Endangered Species Act even though science does not support listing this "subspecies."

There is no biological support for this subspecies contention. The wolves in Southeast Alaska move from island to island following the food, which is the Sitka black tail deer. Evidence shows that deer move back and forth from the mainland to the islands. Their tracks have been seen crossing Dry Straits from Mitkof Island near Petersburg to the mainland near Wrangell and then to wherever there are deer.

The deer winter in the heavy old-growth areas close to tidewater, where they forage on kelp and seaweed. These fringes of old growth along the shore are not available for timber harvest under Forest Service regulations.

The lawsuit filed by environmentalist groups argues that the Forest Service must maintain stable populations of the wildlife on its islands. They suggest that for the wolf, it means stopping logging so that the wolves have enough deer to feed upon. But this is indirect, speculative protection for wolves.

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Stopping timber harvest on the Big Thorne Project area is not the most direct or certain way to protect the wolf population. Hunting and trapping and illegal hunting account for 87 percent of wolf mortality in Game Unit 2 in which the Big Thorne Project is located. Four buck deer can be taken for the season Aug. 1 to Dec. 31. Five wolves can be taken from Aug. 1 to March 31, with a 60-wolf cap on the take per year. As the forest supervisor pointed out in a Big Thorne NEPA report: "I asked myself this question -- 'If I do not implement the Big Thorne Project, would this solve the issue of wolf mortality on Prince of Wales Island?' -- and the answer was no."

To try to link timber harvest with reduction in deer population and thus a decline in the wolf population is nothing more than a fabricated argument to stop logging. If environmentalists really wanted to increase the number of wolves, they would instead support ADF&G's proposal to reduce the 60 per year cap on wolf take. This would directly and immediately increase both the deer and wolf populations. But, there is a balance in nature -- an increase in wolves will result in a decrease in deer. The wolves will then move to where there are more deer. Logging has little to do with nature's balancing in this regard.

Most Alaskans can see through the haze of this selfish environmentalists' effort to halt timber harvesting in the Tongass National Forest -- an industry that is renewable and sustainable that can provide an economy and jobs for its residents. Alaska must be allowed to develop its resources or become wards of the federal government as we were before statehood.

Frank Murkowski, a Republican, represented Alaska for four terms in the U.S. Senate and served one term as governor.

The views expressed here are the writer's own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary(at)alaskadispatch.com.

Frank Murkowski

Frank Murkowski is a former governor and United States senator from Alaska.

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