What does a thriving “salmon forest” look like? Trees and fish, rivers and streams, and not much else. Southeast Alaska’s 17-million acre Tongass National Forest embodies that image pretty much perfectly. During the last several years Trout Unlimited has worked with scientists in the region to keep it that way, identifying more than 70 areas within the national forest that are vital to maintaining that untouched ecosystem. The problem is the Tongass is open for development activities—you betcha—that would negatively impact habitat. Working to nix that outcome, America’s Salmon Forest Coalition has been lobbying for protections by way of amendments to the Tongass Land Management Plan (TLMP). And now you can help.

“The TLMP amendment process offers stakeholders the opportunity to compel the Forest Service to remove these watersheds from development status and ensure that their management focus is the production of fish through administrative changes to the Forest Plan,” says the coalition. “This would elevate the status of these watersheds and help ensure fish and fish production are a management priority for the Forest Service in these important Tongass watersheds.”

From now through Feb. 22, lend your voice to the public comment period and support the inclusion of fish-focused management for the Tongass 77 watersheds in the TLMP. To take part, click here.

Read more at americansalmonforest.org

Tom Bie
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Tom Bie is the founder, editor, and publisher of The Drake. He started the magazine in 1998 as an annual newsprint publication based in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He then moved it to Steamboat, Colorado (1999), Boulder, Colorado (2001), and San Clemente, California (2004), as he took jobs as managing editor at Paddler, Senior Editor at Skiing, and Editor-in-Chief at Powder, respectively. Tom and The Drake are now both based in Denver, Colorado, where The Drake is finally all grows up(Swingers, 1996) to a quarterly magazine.

Category: Daily Drake
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Author: Tom Bie

Tom Bie is the founder, editor, and publisher of The Drake. He started the magazine in 1998 as an annual newsprint publication based in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He then moved it to Steamboat, Colorado (1999), Boulder, Colorado (2001), and San Clemente, California (2004), as he took jobs as managing editor at Paddler, Senior Editor at Skiing, and Editor-in-Chief at Powder, respectively. Tom and The Drake are now both based in Denver, Colorado, where The Drake is finally all grows up(Swingers, 1996) to a quarterly magazine.

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