Stop Old Growth Logging in Tongass
Evidence
Only 1.5% of old-growth remains and there's still time to stop it.
Oct 19, 2026
In a stunning move, the U.S. Forest Service is pressing ahead with plans to clearcut one of the last great surviving old-growth groves in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest, despite receiving new evidence from us documenting extraordinary wildlife habitat inside it.
A recent study estimated that just 1.5% of forests in the contiguous United States meet the federal definition of old growth. And the Forest Service is preparing to destroy another of our country’s extraordinary ancient groves.
Enough is enough.
The agency has now completed its environmental review and is preparing to approve the logging. The formal objection period opened Friday, October 16, giving eligible opponents until November 30 to challenge the plan.
We have 43 days to stop this.
The proposal calls for logging approximately 1,738 acres of old-growth forest in the Tongass National Forest, up from 1,655 acres in April’s draft. Among them is a 16.2-acre grove of giant Sitka spruce and cedar, known to the Forest Service as Unit 346.
In September, we showed you this remarkable place, where trees rival the giants of Redwood and Sequoia national parks. We also documented seven denning structures in and around the proposed logging area, including an enormous hollow at the base of a living tree.
On September 10, we sent the Forest Service our photographs, findings, and the locations of those structures, asking the agency to address them in its final review.
The following morning, the project lead confirmed that our evidence had been added to the official record and would be shared with the agency’s wildlife biologist and silviculturist.
Then, on October 14, the Forest Service released roughly 720 pages of final review documents.
Not one acknowledgment of our submission. Not one mention of the seven denning structures. Not one public explanation of how the agency evaluated what we found.
The agency may have conducted that review internally. Its published documents don’t tell us.
And the logging prescription for Unit 346 hasn’t changed.
“Clearcutting is prescribed for this unit.”
I reached out again this morning to Acting Forest Supervisor Janelle Crocker, sent her photographs of the grove, and asked whether she has ever stood among these trees herself.
I’ll report back on what I hear.
Janelle Crocker is the person responsible for signing the final decision. She has the authority to remove Unit 346 from this timber sale. And she should.
UPDATE: A reader has said that Paul Robbins is also a main point of contact - please email him & Janelle with objections directly: paul.robbins@usda.gov & janelle.crocker@usda.gov and call 907-225-3101
We’re going to fight this to the bitter end.
Enough is enough.
A scientific study estimated that just 1.53 percent of forestland in the contiguous United States meets the federal definition of old growth.
That estimate doesn’t include Alaska. But the situation on Prince of Wales Island is staggering in its own right.
According to an estimate by retired Alaska wildlife biologist John Schoen, approximately 94 percent of northern Prince of Wales Island’s contiguous high-volume old-growth forest has been logged.
Think about that. Nearly an entire landscape of ancient forest, gone.
And now, in 2026, the Forest Service wants to cut down one of the last surviving groves.
Perhaps the most infuriating detail is buried in its own assessment of Unit 346. The agency says the risk of trees blowing down “is high due to its exposure to winds coming off Red Bay and adjacent past harvest.”
Adjacent past harvest.
The surrounding forest has already been logged. That logging has left the remaining ancient trees more exposed to wind, and now those same trees are being offered up for clearcutting citing the previous clearcutting as a reason.
The Forest Service says the larger sale would help provide local mills with two to three years of timber supply.
Two or three years of timber from forests that took centuries to grow.
As we documented in our Steinway investigation, the timber industry continues to pursue the exceptional old-growth spruce of Prince of Wales Island. The Forest Service’s analysis assumes logs from the area containing Unit 346 would be shipped to Viking Lumber, Steinway’s supplier, although the ultimate purchaser decides where the wood goes.
We understand that timber jobs support families in Southeast Alaska. But those communities also deserve a future in which the island’s last great ancient forests haven’t all been cut down.
At what point does a nation look at what remains of its natural inheritance and finally say no?
How can we continue liquidating ancient forests on public land when we’ve already lost so much of them? What possible justification is there for clearcutting a grove like Unit 346 when the Forest Service has the power to leave it standing?
The answer should be obvious.
Remove Unit 346 from the sale.
Help us defend America’s public lands for the cost of a bundle of firewood/month.
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Here’s what we’re doing
On September 8, we filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking the Forest Service’s underlying surveys, wildlife assessments, timber records, and internal communications concerning Twin Mountain II and Unit 346.
Those records could help establish how the agency evaluated this grove and what happened to the evidence we submitted two days later.
We’re continuing to pursue that paper trail and working with the organizations defending the Tongass. We’ll report what the records establish and hold the officials responsible for this decision accountable.
But we need your help now.
Seven ways to help save this grove
1. Contact the person who can stop this – Janelle Crocker, acting supervisor of the Tongass National Forest and Paul Robbins: paul.robbins@usda.gov & janelle.crocker@usda.gov and call 907-225-3101. Ask her why she’s determined to log this old growth demand that she remove the grove from the sale. Let her know we’re not backing down.
2. Demand that the Forest Service remove Unit 346. We’ve built a page with photographs of the grove and a ready-to-send letter to the officials responsible. Add your name and send it.
3. Tell Steinway to take a stand. Ask the company to publicly commit that it won’t accept timber from Unit 346 if that wood ends up at its supplier, Viking Lumber.
4. Get in touch and support the organizations defending the Tongass. The Southeast Alaska Conservation Council and Earthjustice have fought major logging plans on Prince of Wales Island. We’ve shared our field findings with both.
Contact: info@seacc.org and tell them this matters to you.
Contact: info@earthjustice.org and tell them this matters to you.
5. Share this investigation. Send people the photographs. Show them the ancient trees that the Forest Service is preparing to destroy. The more Americans who see this grove, the harder it becomes to dismiss its destruction as a routine timber sale.
The final logging decision hasn’t been signed. These trees are standing. And the Forest Service has every opportunity to do the right thing.
For generations, Americans have fought to protect the country’s extraordinary natural wonders from people who saw little more than resources to be extracted.
That responsibility now falls to us.
The Forest Service can remove these 16.2 acres. It should remove these 16.2 acres. And we’re going to do everything we can to make sure it does.
We’re not backing down,Will
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