scientist sign on letter - roadless areas and Alaska rainforest conservation
Dominick DellaSala
Dear Colleagues - we have an urgent request for scientists to weigh in on millions of acres of public lands threatened by conservation rollbacks proposed in Congress. Please join these distinguished scientists in signing the scientist letter online in support of the national roadless conservation rule and Alaska rainforests. SCB has weighed in previously in support of these initiatives.
Click here to sign on
Members of Congress
United States Senate and House of Representatives
United States Capital
Washington, D.C.
Dear Members of Congress:
As scientists working in diverse natural resource‐related disciplines, we write with great concern for provisions in the Senate’s fiscal 2018 spending bill for the Interior Department that threaten one of our country’s most important conservation laws—the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule—and the federal forests in Alaska that it protects. Section 509 of that bill would outright exempt our two largest national forests, the Tongass and the Chugach, from the Roadless Rule. Section 508 would overturn the Tongass management plan that adds protections for large “inventoried” roadless areas and other ecologically critical lands, and charts a transition away from logging old‐growth forests. These riders pose grave threats to fish and wildlife populations (and the residents, visitors, and businesses dependent on them), our national interest in conserving vanishing wildlands, and the urgent task of limiting climate change.
The Roadless Rule, adoption and retention of which millions of Americans supported, was a critical step in preserving the invaluable benefits that intact forests provide to our country. Undisturbed roadless areas reduce flood threats and supply clean sources of drinking water to millions of Americans.ᶦ They maintain the integrity and productivity of aquatic ecosystems throughout the nation. They are sanctuaries for wildlife, helping to prevent or alleviate the need to list imperiled species as threatened or endangered. And, as the realities of global climate change become ever more apparent, their importance in maintaining large forest carbon reserves is increasingly recognized as indispensable in mitigating adverse climate effects.ᶦᶦ
Nowhere are the benefits of protecting roadless areas and similar ecologically important lands greater than on the Tongass. With towering old‐growth trees that can live 700‐1,000 years, it is our country’s largest expanse of native forest and one of the last remaining intact coastal rainforests in the world.ᶦᶦᶦ Together with the Chugach, it harbors a quarter of all inventoried roadless areas nationwide.ᶦᵛ Its ancient forests support the world’s largest breeding concentration of bald eagles,ᵛ rare endemic taxa like the Alexander Archipelago wolf, and one of the highest densities of brown bears on the globe.ᵛᶦ Retaining the existing roadless areas of the Tongass is a “key element” in sustaining the region’s extraordinary salmon runsᵛᶦᶦ (and their commercial, subsistence, and recreational fisheries). The Tongass also represents North America’s largest carbon sink,ᵛᶦᶦᶦ some of the richest, most biologically productive forest on Earth, and twenty‐nine percent of the world’s unlogged coastal temperate rainforest.ᶦˣ
We urge you to vote against any bill containing these riders, for the sake of America’s publicly owned natural heritage, the fish, wildlife, biodiversity, and people dependent on its continued well‐being, and our country’s leadership on native forest conservation that is vital to containing climate damage. Thank you for considering our views on this matter of national significance.
Respectfully yours,
Dr. Paul Ehrlich
Bing Prof. of Population Studies Emeritus
President, Center for Conservation Biology
Stanford Universityˣ
Dr. Stanley Temple
Beers‐Bascom Professor Emeritus in Conservation
University of Wisconsin‐Madison
Senior Fellow, Aldo Leopold Foundation
Dr. Gretchen Daily
Bing Professor in Environmental Science
Director, Center for Conservation Biology
Stanford University
Dr. Norman Christensen
Prof. of Ecology Em. and Founding Dean
Nicholas School of the Environment
Duke University
Dr. Monica G. Turner
Eugene P. Odum Professor of Ecology
Vilas Research Professor
University of Wisconsin
Dr. John Robinson
Exec. Vice Pres., Conservation & Science
Wildlife Conservation Society
Dr. Simon Levin
James McDonnell Distinguished Univ. Prof.
Director of the Center for BioComplexity
Princeton University
Dr. Barry Noon
Professor, Fish, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology
Colorado State University
Dr. Thomas Lovejoy
University Professor
George Mason University
Senior Fellow, UN Foundation
Dr. Russell Lande
Professor of Biology Emeritus
University of California, San Diego
Dr. David Wilcove
Professor of Ecology, Evolutionary
Biology, and Public Affairs
Princeton University
Dr. George Woodwell
Director Emeritus
Woods Hold Research Center
Dr. Beverly Law
Professor, Global Change Biology &
Terrestrial Systems Science
Oregon State University
Dr. Dennis Murphy
Research Professor
University of Nevada, Reno
Dr. Clifford Duke
Director, Science Programs
Ecological Society of America
Dr. Cara Nelson
Associate Professor of Restoration Ecology
University of Montana
i DellaSala, D.A., J.R. Karr, and D.M. Olson. 2011. Roadless areas and clean water. Journal of Soil and Water Conservation 66:78A‐84A.
ii The World Bank. Outcomes from COP21: Forests as Key Climate and Development Solution. 2015. http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2015/12/18/outcomes‐from‐cop21‐forests‐as‐a‐key‐climate‐ and‐development‐solution.
iii DellaSala. D.A. 2011. Temperate and boreal rainforests of the world: ecology and conservation. Island Press: Washington DC.
iv Compare https://www.fs.usda.gov/roadmain/roadless/home and https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/roadless/2001roadlessrule/maps/statemaps/?cid=fsm8_037699.
v Jacobson, M.J., and J.I. Hodges. 1999. Population trend of adult bald eagles in Alaska. Journal of Raptor Research 33:295–298.
vi https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/tongass/recreation/natureviewing/?cid=stelprdb5401845
vii Bryant, D.B. and F.H. Everest. 1998. Management and Condition of Watersheds in Southeast Alaska: The Persistence of Anadromous Salmon. Northwest Science 72(4):249‐267.
viii Leighty, W.W., S.P. Hamburg, and J. Caouette. 2006. Effects of management on carbon sequestration in forest biomass in southeast Alaska. Ecosphere 9:1051‐1065.
ix Kramer, M., A.J. Hansen, M.L. Taper, and E.J. Kissinger. 2001. Abiotic Controls on Long‐Term Windthrow Disturbance and Temperate Rain Forest Dynamics in Southeast Alaska. Ecology 82(10):2749‐2768.
x All signatories’ institutional information is provided for identification purposes only.
Dominick A. DellaSala, Ph.D | President, Chief Scientist
Editor and Primary Author "Temperate and Boreal Rainforests of the World: Ecology & Conservation" https://islandpress.org/author/dominick-a-dellasala
Co-editor and Author "The Ecological Importance of Mixed-Severity Fires:Nature's Phoenix"
www.scitechconnect.elsevier.com/author/dominick-dellasala/
Co-editor "Encyclopedia of the Anthropocene" https://www.elsevier.com/books/encyclopedia-of-the-anthropocene/dellasala/978-0-12-809665-9
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