Totally into the Tongass National Forest? Take Action on Climate Change on October 24th

In August, I was able to spend a week in the Tongass National Forest with a NRDC group led by our Founding Director John Adams.  Spanning 17 million acres of southeast Alaska, the Tongass National Forest is the largest forest in the U.S. and the largest remaining temperate rainforest on Earth.  It was truly beautiful with towering mountains, vast expanses of trees, fjords, and islands.  The Tongass was teaming with life.  We saw streams swollen with salmon, bald eagles everywhere, grizzly bears at a safe distance, and humpback whales breaching.

It was my first visit to this incredible natural sanctuary, but NRDC has been active in preventing timber companies from securing unfettered access to this forest for almost four decades.

Today we continue to fight against road-building and logging in the BioGem.  Check out the videos posted by my colleague Franz Matzner here, here, and here featuring of the stories of the people living there. 

 As renowned biologist Dr. Tom Lovejoy  argues (you listen to an interview with him here), we must now protect the Tongass from climate change as well.   

• Rising greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere forces the oceans to absorb more carbon dioxide, altering the chemical structure of oceans in a process called acidification (explained in NRDC's new film on the subject, Acid Test). In the Gulf of Alaska, this acidity prevents native crabs and other organisms from building strong shells they need for protection.
• Ocean acidification also affects microscopic phytoplankton and pteropods, the base of the marine food chain. Pteropods in particular make up roughly half the diet of the pink salmon. Just a 10% decrease in pteropod populations could result in a 20% decrease in the body weight of adult salmon.
• Over the last fifty years, the average temperature in theTongass has increased by 2.3 degrees Fahrenheit. Warmer temperatures and altered freezing cycles have already contributed to a decline in Yellow-cedar populations throughout southeastern Alaska. The Yellow-cedar's fine roots are very sensitive to these changing freezing patterns, making it one of the best documented examples of how climate change can affect forest tree species.

I saw the dead Yellow-cedars during my visit to the Tongass. As a result, I became even more determined that we protect this extraordinary natural place from climate change.  Join NRDC and 350.org as we urge political leaders to take necessary climate action now.  There is no time to lose.   Act on October 24!

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