Demand Wilderness for Alaska's Wild Chugach National Forest
Time is Short--final days of public comment period
Alaska Rainforest Campaign, http://www.akrain.org/
e-mail info@akrain.org or call 907-222-2552
December 7, 2000
The Forest Service in Alaska has released its Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the country's wildest and second largest National Forest, the Chugach National Forest. The 5.6 million acre Chugach is 98% roadless, yet not one acre is protected by Congress as Wilderness.
The Forest Service's "preferred" alternative does not recommend any of the valuable wetland habitat of the Copper River Delta for wilderness protection and falls short on other protections like those for Prince William Sound.
The Forest Service is now accepting the public's input in a comment period which closes December 14, 2000. Now is the time for us, owners of our public lands, to speak up and demand Wilderness for the wetlands of the Copper River Delta as well as protections for other valuable parts of the Chugach National Forest like Prince William Sound.
Make comments easily online or get more info on the web @ http://www.nwf.org/copperriver/forestservice.html or send letters to (talking points below):
Forest Plan Revision
Chugach National Forest
3301 C Street, Suite 300
Anchorage, AK 99503
Email: r10_chugach_revision@fs.fed.us
Fax: 907-271-3992
Tell the Forest Service to:
Recommend wilderness for ALL of the productive wetlands of the Copper River Delta, both east and west of the river.
~~~Wilderness is the only way to permanently protect the Delta from being overrun by clear-cutting, coal mining, oil and gas drilling, and the sprawl of large-scale industrial tourism.
~~~Wilderness would permanently protect the habitat of the famous wild copper River salmon, 16 million shorebirds and waterfowl, brown bears, and wolves of the Delta.
Recommend ALL eligible wild and scenic rivers on the Forest, including the Copper, Bering, Martin, and Katalla Rivers, Alaganik Slough, and Martin and Bering Lakes.
Please recommend wilderness for important areas in Prince William Sound like Knight and Montague Islands, Jack and Sawmill Bays to help species continue to recover from the Exxon Valdez oil spill and to protect the Sound from large-scale industrial tourism.
Recommend wilderness for all critical brown bear habitat on the Kenai Peninsula, the Kenai River valley, Resurrection Creek, Snow, and Twenty-Mile River valleys.
Use logging only to protect the safety of communities. Do not use "forest health" as an excuse for more logging in wild unroaded areas.