The Tongass Futures Roundtable has lost six members just before its spring meeting. Those that left say the Roundtable has not progressed in stabilizing timber sales and the bureaucratic process has been too slow.
A press release states those leaving include Coffman Cove City Administrator Elaine Price, Wrangell Economic Development Director Carol Rushmore, Wrangell Borough Manager Tim Rooney, Petersburg City Manager Scott Hahn, Petersburg Community Development Director Leo Luczak and former Craig Mayor Dennis Watson.
Norman Cohen of the Roundtable said there are now 22 members left.
“The small communities that pulled out joined because they’re interested in the timber issue and land management because it’s been such a battle for the last 20 years,” said Price. “Our goal was to come up with some common ground for a sustainable timber industry. The Roundtable hasn’t made any headway in that direction and just drained away from that idea.”
Price said other issues have taken a large part of the Roundtable’s time, such as Native issues and the Sealaska Lands Bill. She said it’s “been a great venue to learn about Native issues,” but that isn’t the topic many had signed on for.
Luczak said he left because the organization was more of a mind that all decisions had to be unanimous before agreements were made, thus inhibiting progress.
He said it seemed like every member had veto power in decisions they didn’t agree with and some declared they would not compromise on issues.
“We were trying to find a way to have a decent timber supply so small mills could keep in operation but after five years very little progress has been made,” said Luczak.
“There was just this policy and it was not going anywhere,” he said.
The release states that consensus there doesn’t work with several members living outside Southeast Alaska and differences in priorities. It states those leaving feel the organization failed in agreements, resolutions and the agenda.
It also states those six felt proposals by the timber industry were consistently rejected for creating too much impact to newly identified critical habitat areas.
Just because they’ve left this organization doesn’t mean the members have given up their cause. Price said they hope the new state timber task force will solve issues with the industry.
“Those that participated in Tongass Futures Roundtable really appreciated the nature conservancy’s effort and the foundations that funded it. It was a good try,” she said.
Although smaller, the Roundtable intends to continue business as usual for the time being.
“The Roundtable’s view is that there are still lots of important issues that need to be addressed and our members are committed to those issues,” said Cohen.
The Roundtable is meeting in Hydaburg today and Wednesday.
• Contact reporter Jonathan Grass at 523-2276 or at jonathan.grass@juneauempire.com.
Comments (9)
Add commentJust shut that thing down
Just shut that thing down. It's a joke and it's setting up to be a bigger joke.
good good
Hopefully all the other publicly funded participants can also find their way out the door. There really needs to be an audit of this thing if the Forest Service is going to continue to be a part of it and if public money through the National Forest Foundation is going to be spent on all these special interest group meetings. If the Nature Conservancy and Sealaska want to sit around and play fantasy forest manager dividing up the Tongass that's one thing, but the rest of us shouldn't have to pay for the Forest Service to participate. Supposedly, we're in a budgetary crisis and the countless dollars spent flying public agency personnel around to give presentations to special interest groups as well as the tax-exempt monies are funds not spent on education, health care, veterans and other more worthy causes.
There needs to be a law suit over FACA on the TFR
This is not a representative body - it's a scam. The Forest Service shouldn't be on it - it's illegal.
TFR Why? Moore Foundation doesn't want to admit utter failure
Moore foundation internally doesn't want to admit failure. So on this thing goes and they destroy various people's interests all around the region (with the real work that goes on behind the scenes).
Old Growth Logging Not Sustainable
Logging old growth is not economically sustainable. Those tress produce a lot more revenue and jobs if left alive than dead.
6 leave the TFR?
The reality is that Niel Lawrence of NRDC and The Boat Company (and their two alternates), Champion (a fund-er of TFR), Steve Kallic of PEW, John Schoen of Audubon, The Southeast Conference, and others have also left the TFR. The TFR had 35 members and now has 22. So one third of the members have left. Note I was the alternative for NRDC for one year and was at the voting table only two times and never voted on a timber issue.
The 6 that just left the TFR claim a lack of a willing to work to help the timbers industry from the environmentalists. Not true at all. As disturbing as it may seem to some groups, a map was put on the table at a Anchorage TFR meeting. It would give the industry 1 million acres of the Tongass by transferring it into State ownership. It would give the environmentalists about 4 million acres of various kinds of protection. A straw vote was taken for those who would oppose it and the majority of those who were against it were those who support the timber industry. Including some of the now famous 6. They were also unwilling to comprise.
exactly mp
MP is right. While the withdrawal of the public officials is commendable, their reasons are misleading. They have had ample opportunities - indeed, through the existing federal public timber sale program - to provide opportunities for "small" mills. But they seem to want the right to clearcut the entire southern Tongass and many of the remaining TFR members have been more than willing to accommodate a significant amount of that demand.
The idea that a bunch of foundation representatives and their grant recipients from places like San Francisco, Washington D.C., Seattle, Portland, and Anchorage would give away 1 million acres of high value public lands habitat for intensive logging (state of Alaska rules, meaning Sealaska style clearcuts) that are important to the non-timber economy of the 80,000 people who live here in exchange for 4 million acres of Wilderness that would likely never be logged under the current economy or federal law is an outrage.
Even a smaller scale proposal such as the ongoing efforts to "improve" the Sealaska bill are troubling. Again, high risk habitat is compromised in exchange for illusory "protection" of habitat that would be left alone in any event. Not to mention that such a deal perpetuates the injustice done to Sealaska's shareholders forty years ago when Congress used the land claims as a tool to enable other people to make money off the net operating losses while shareholders got pennies. Why do the foundations get to have such influence over the region? These same foundations were messing around in British Columbia's Great Bear Rainforest trying to do the same thing they are doing here - intensive logging in one area in exchange for superficial "protection" in another and now the environmentalists are wanting B.C.'s version of ADF & G (DFO) to shut down the salmon fisheries now that some of the salmon runs have "coincidentally" disappeared.
Thanks, TFR, but no thanks. Please take your place-based legislation and your comprehensive solutions and go home and do something else. You are subverting democracy.
TFR = no public
TFR = no public participation. If you are not part of the chosen few you have no influence. The parties that wanted to try for compromise were locked out by those who wanted the whole thing their way. What a wast of money, the timber industry of the past is dead, some just don't want to acknowledge the fact that they already got the cream off the top that went to the large timber industry, the rest is needed by the other multiple use users, including but not exclusive to small mills. Interesting to note that in 1986 only 3% (173,600 acres) of designated wilderness contained Old Growth Timber that is over 30,000 board feet per acre and considered commercially viable. The rest is rock, ice, muskeg, mountain tops, battered coasts, and scrub trees. Those who like to look on a map and show ' all that locked up wilderness' as prime old growth habitat don't know what they are talking about. TFR was just being used by the industry to get more of it while offering a few more token wilderness areas.