Friend,

Last month, the Trump administration officially opened the Tongass National Forest -- the world's largest intact temperate rainforest -- to logging.1,2

We know the Tongass is irreplaceable -- so we're joining a lawsuit to protect it.

To make sure we have the resources we need to stand up for this special place, we've set a goal of raising $20,000 this Giving Tuesday (Dec. 1). With just 9 hours left, will you donate to our Giving Tuesday drive to help keep the Tongass intact?

The Tongass -- 17 million acres of forest along a string of islands off Alaska's southern coast -- is truly wild.

Its old-growth trees predate the American Revolution; brown bears hunt five different species of Pacific salmon along its cool streams; moose and deer share its fjords with a rare population of jet-black wolves and the largest concentration of nesting bald eagles in the world.3

More than half of it is protected by the Roadless Rule, which keeps undeveloped parts of America's national forests from being logged or having roads built through them.4 Our national network helped win the rule in 2001, and we've worked to defend it ever since.

But in October, the Trump administration exempted the Tongass from that protection. Roads could soon crisscross the Tongass like a suburban development. Millions of acres of its old-growth trees could be felled and processed -- turned from habitat into planks and boards.

We're ready to defend this wild place. But to run our campaign, we need to be able to count on your support.

This Giving Tuesday, give the gift of wilderness: Donate to help us meet our $20,000 goal by the Dec. 1 deadline.

When the Roadless Rule was established back in 2001, nearly half of the 1.6 million comments gathered in support of the rule were a direct result of our national network's organizing.

We've helped preserve the Tongass before, and we can do it again. We're suing to keep this forest, and others like it, intact.

You can help make sure our work is successful. Donate today and help us meet our Giving Tuesday goal.

Thanks for making it all possible,

Hannah Collazo
State Director

1. Rebecca Beitsch and Rachel Frazin, "Trump strips protections for Tongass forest, opening it to logging," The Hill, October 28, 2020.
2. Juliet Eilperin, "Trump administration proposes expanding logging in Alaska's Tongass National Forest," The Washington Post, October 15, 2019.
3. Brendan Jones, "Trees older than America: a primeval Alaskan forest is at risk in the Trump era," The Guardian, March 22, 2018.
4. Brendan Jones, "Trees older than America: a primeval Alaskan forest is at risk in the Trump era," The Guardian, March 22, 2018.

Your donation will be used to support all of our campaigns to protect the environment, from saving the bees and protecting public lands, to standing up for clean water and fighting climate change. None of our work would be possible without supporters like you. Environment Colorado may transfer up to $50 per dues-paying member per year into the Environment Colorado Small Donor Committee.