The Global Stakes of Saving the Alaskan Rainforest

I'm your host, David Schultz. So save the rainforest is kind of an environmental bumper sticker phrase that basically everyone knows, and the topic of rainforest health has been in the news alloted lately with Brazil's struggle to contain wildfires in the Amazon. But and this is going to sound really obvious after I say it, there's not just the rainforest. There are lots of rainforests. I'll let Bobby McGill explain. Bobby covers natural resources and climate here at Bloomberg Environment

and he just visited this US rainforest. It's actually called the Tongas National Forest, and it comprises pretty much all of southeastern Alaska, that's right, and Alaskan rainforest. Bobby's been doing a lot of reporting on efforts by the Trump administration to open up this area to the logging industry. And we'll get to the consequences of that in a second. But first, Bobby, I get the sense from your reporting that this is not a rainforest like any other or

like very few others in the world. What makes this different than something in like the Amazon or the Borneo or something. So it's important to know that the Tongus National Forest is the largest national forest in the country. It's roughly the same size as West Virginia, the entire state. Roughly, it's just under seventeen million acres wild, and it encompasses

pretty much the entire panhandle of Alaska. It's part of this giant coastal temperate rainforest ecosystem that stretches from say roughly Anchoraged to roughly say Monterey, California, and so this area gets a lot of rain. It's the kind of forest you'll see around Seattle. But the difference is that the forest in the Tongas is relatively untouched. There's been some blogging there in the past, but it's it's pretty pristine. I mean, think of them, think of a primordial forest.

This that's what the Tongus is. Yeah, and you spoke with Mary Catherine Martin, who is the spokesman for an Alaskan environmental group called Salmon State, and she basically laid out sort of what makes this forest really unique. I think everybody cares about clean air and clean water, and this is one of the few places in the world where we have a real abundance of both. The trees here contribute clean air for the whole world. They absorb a lot of carbon. So we'll get to the carbon

absorption issues in a moment. But you went to Tongus recently, you were actually speaking with Mary Catherine in the forest itself. What was it like? How did you even get there? Because I get the sense this you mentioned this is untouched, Like, how do you even get to it? Well, it's not completely untouched. The state capitol, Juno is surround the Tongus

National Forest. There are roads in the Tongus, but because it's so big, there are giant areas that are unroaded that there there's five million acres of wilderness there that's not really threatened at the moment, at least not by current policy, and so there's just a lot to it. And so you can fly into the Tongus. Actually, when I flew there, flew to Juno, I took what they called a milk run flight. Milk run. Why is it called milk run, because that's how they deliver supplies to

these to these towns. There's that isolated it is. The Juno is off the national highway network. It's the it's on the mainland, but there are no roads that lead to it from elsewhere. And I'm glad you brought that up because it sounds like the main issue here is something called the roadless Rule, which is something I didn't know about until I read your story. Can you explain what this is? So the roadless Rule was a Clinton era policy that was finalized in two thousand and one,

right before clin And left office. And basically it applies to all the national forests in the country and the purpose of this was to reduce logging and protect the ecosystems which had been threatened over the decades by a lot of logging and development. And so it prevents roads from being built. Pretty self explanatory. Well, it's actually quite complicated, but at the heart of the matter, it keeps roads

from being built for logging. Primately, so you can't build the road and you can't get into cut down the trees, and so the trees stay where they are, and it sounds like in Tongas we have some pretty big trees and pretty old trees, right right, So it's important to know that the Tongas or parts of the Tongas were heavily logged back in the seventies and eighties. But it's so big that even though you know, hundreds of thousands of acres were clear cut back back in those days,

a lot of it remains untouched. And you spoke with David Schmid, who's the Alaskan regional for STIR with the US Forest Service, which is the I guess the agency that's considering changing the roadless rule and maybe opening up Tongus to more logging. And he said basically that this change that they're thinking about making would really barely make a dent in the forest, and it's it's such a

minor thing that is happening. Let's hear from him. Give then the existing forest plan, the amount of wilderness sits on the Tongus, the amount of area that's not suitable, there's a lot of rock and ice and a lot of other characteristics that those are still protected and preserved. So he's basically saying, you know, this forest is so big most of it can't even be logged even if the logging companies wanted to log it. The changes that

are up for debate here are pretty minor. Does he have a point, Well, let's review some of the history of this. So the roadless rule came into existence in two thousand and one. The Bush administration turned around in two thousand and three and exempted the Tongus from the roadless rule. Okay, environmental groups sued and over the years this was litigated. The thing is here, though, that the

state of Alaska has always opposed this. They see the roadless rule as an impediment not just to logging, but to mining, to hydropower development and other kinds of development. But it's also more complicated than that. Alaska Native communities use the tongas for subsistence. They fish there, they hunt there. This is not I mean, it's a wild place, but it's not completely wild. And so what's happening now is the Actually in twenty eighteen, the state of Alaska petitioned

the Trump administration to revisit this roadless rule exemption. But you know, Democrats in Congress have accused the Trump administration of essentially going through this process that they think has a predetermined outcome. So, you know, you just sort of laid out very nicely the stakes for you know, the state of Alaska, which wants to you know, boost its economy and have more economic activity going on in the forest.

You also have pretty high stakes for tribal groups in the area who rely on the natural resources there and are worried that could be sort of despoiled. But now I want to get into the global impacts. And you know, it may sound strange when you're talking about sort of one forest in one US state, but this has global impacts. You talked about it briefly. Let's get really into it, into the science. The trees in this forest store a

tremendous amount of carbon. Cutting down these trees would release the carbon, I guess into the environment, and I guess exacerbate climate change. Can you explain that a little bit, the old growth trees and the old growth stands of spruce and hemlock store more CO two from the atmosphere acre per acre than the Amazon does. So it is that this forest type is the most carbon dense on Earth,

and there's not a lot of it left. The other thing is that, you know, the United Nations and its various reports on the status of climate change right now says that climate change is getting worse, and part of keeping it in check is not just maintaining the forest

we have, but possibly expanding them and regrowing them. And so one of the concerns is that if you have the most carbon dense forest in one of the most carbon dense forests in the world, being threatened by fragmentation and potential future logging, it could have a global impact.

That's one thing I really didn't realize until I read your story was that, you know, I just I assumed, you know, I know, everyone knows that trees store carbon, of course, but I just thought, you know, a tree stores carbon, All trees are the same, all forests are the same. No, that's not the case at all. This forest is so carbon dense. And you spoke with Alison Bidlack, who is at the University of Alaska Southeast. She is a scientist there, and she kind of laid it out

in even more stark terms. They're sort of small but mighty right. They don't actually cover that much, like that large of a percentage of the globe. But what they do cover. They they do it in Spain. So these you know, these small but mighty forests that I guess

for atmospheric reasons because they're just so old. They're small, but they store so much carbon, right, And just to put that into perspective, she's talking about all the coastal temperate rainforests globally, of which the Tonguis is one of

the most pristine. And you know, it's a tough issue because at the same time, you know, I'm pretty sympathetic to or I guess anyone could be sympathetic to the folks in Alaska where you know, the economy there is not that well developed, and you know, if there's an opportunity to sort of expand you know, create more jobs, you know, that seems like something that you know, anyone can get behind. At the same time, this seems like a very important for us that is very threatened. Where

do you see this going? So this roadless, this draft exemption to the real This rule is currently in public comment through December seventeenth. We expect a final version of this rule to come out next year sometime, and presumably a final version of or a final decision on that will follow probably sometime in next year, sometime in twenty twenty, but environmental groups are expected to sue. This could be wrapped up in litigation for years. All right, well, and

Bobby McGill will be following this four years. That was Bloomberg Environment's Bobby McGill talking about the Tongas National Forest in Alaska and his recent trip to that state. If you want to see more of Bobby's reporting on this and many other issues, visit our website news dot Bloomberg

Environment dot com. That's news dot Bloomberg Environment dot com, and if you want to chat with us on social media, don't forget to use the hashtag parts per b. Today's episode of Parts Pavilion was produced by myself along with Marisa Horn, Jessica Coombs, and Rjjewell. The music for this episode is a message by Are. It was used under a Creative Comments license. Thank you for listening. Cases and controversies is all about the Supreme Court? Come on, you know,

come on? Well, I agree you serious. We sit down with leading practitioners and scholars to break down these cases. I mean, I'm glad you brought that up so I didn't have to, But that is interesting I guess my imagination is running wild. Tune in every week for our Deep Dive and sneak Peak episodes wherever you get your podcasts. As always, check out the latest at News dot Bloomberg, law dot com,