The Roadless Rule protects more than half of the Tongass National Forest from road development, and it’s on the chopping block again. Tribes and environmental groups are strategizing to keep it in place.
A host of Alaska Native communities in Southeast Alaska, which rely on the Tongass National Forest for their food and culture, say they want to make the Roadless Rule permanent.
Tlingit advocate Xaawk’w Tláa Yolanda Fulmer presented one tactic at the Southeast Tribal Environmental Forum in Juneau this week. She explained how a bill that was reintroduced to the U.S. House of Representatives this summer called the Roadless Area Conservation Act , or RACA, could codify the Roadless Rule once and for all.
“The current situation is a political struggle between the proposed repeal