In Case You Missed It: President Trump is opening Tongass National Forest — the world's largest intact temperate rainforest and home to 800-year-old trees — to logging and mining. Rush your emergency monthly gift so we can protect our remaining wild land in Alaska and across the US. You'll also get our new and exclusive Shopping Cart Grocery Bag—FREE.

Hi Supporter,

As fires are blazing across the Amazon, President Trump had the audacity to order the Forest Service to exempt our own Tongass National Forest from the Roadless Rule.

I can't even begin to comprehend how devastating the consequences of this action are. The Roadless Rule protects the Tongass — and millions more acres of National Forest System land — from road building and logging. Its countless acres of 800-year-old trees are a critical piece to solving the climate crisis. It's home to threatened species like the Alexander Archipelago wolf and Queen Charlotte Goshawk. And further development would threaten sites sacred to Alaska Natives.

Beyond Alaska, this could set a precedent for states across the country, opening up millions of acres of pristine wild land to development.

Now, we can still stop this. Sen. Maria Cantwell has a bill to prohibit exemptions to the Roadless Rule, keeping it in full force for all of our National Forests. While we are focused on stopping the destruction of the Tongass, we also need to pass Sen. Cantwell's bill to prevent our other natural lands from the same fate.

Make your monthly donation to the Sierra Club today, so we can do absolutely everything possible to save these invaluable natural places. We'll also send you our Shopping Cart Grocery Bag—FREE.

The Tongass is an essential carbon sink. It stores more atmospheric carbon than any other U.S. forest. Each tree that is cut down removes a piece of this invaluable resource that helps slow climate change. Just as we need Brazil to protect the Amazonian rainforest to help avert the climate crisis, we need to protect our own rainforest in Alaska for the same reason.

If Trump and his allies succeed in Alaska, that won't be the end of it. Their goal is to open as much of our public land to clearcutting and mining as they can. And they've made it clear they're going to ignore everything the public wants: Last fall, Alaska's First Nations activists, recreational and commercial fishermen, tourism operators, and others made their desire clear when they submitted 144,000 comments in favor of protecting the Tongass.

At the Sierra Club, this is a matter of listening to those voices most affected by this decision. It's a matter of preserving beautiful places so that we don't need to tell future generations what the natural world used to be like. And it's a matter of protecting the ancient carbon-rich forests that are one of our best tools for stopping the climate crisis, rather than destroying them.

Become a monthly donor today to protect the Tongass, our national forests, and wild places across the country.

Thanks for all you do,

Lena Moffitt
Senior Director, Our Wild America
Sierra Club

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