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Alaskans Weigh In On Proposal To Loosen Tongass National Forest Roadless Rule

Kurt Welser in front of a spruce log before slicing it into premium-quality planks for home-built biplanes. Image by Daniel Grossman. United States, 2019.

Kurt Welser in front of a spruce log before slicing it into premium-quality planks for home-built biplanes. Image by Daniel Grossman. United States, 2019.

The Tongass National Forest in southeast Alaska is the largest national forest in the country and the largest temperate rainforest in the world.

The Trump administration is proposing to loosen rules protecting the Tongass by allowing new road building that will likely lead to logging in the forest for the first time in decades.

The Pulitzer Center sent Daniel Grossman (@grossmanmedia) to Prince of Wales Island in Alaska to talk to residents there about the coming changes. 

Commercial fisherman and forest activist, Elsa Sebastian, stands in an old growth forest grove on Prince of Wales Island in southeast Alaska. Image by Daniel Grossman. United States, 2019.

Commercial fisherman and forest activist, Elsa Sebastian, stands in an old growth forest grove on Prince of Wales Island in southeast Alaska. Image by Daniel Grossman. United States, 2019.