Native America Calling: Trump administration pushes for increased logging in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest

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Native America Calling: Trump administration pushes for increased logging in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest

Tuesday, September 2, 2025

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Trump administration pushes for increased logging in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest

The Donald Trump administration is working to remove protections for more than 58 million acres of national forests.

A brief public comment period is now open on a plan to rescind the federal government’s 25-year-old Roadless Rule which prohibits road construction and timber harvesting in several states. Environmental groups and leaders of Alaska Native tribes with cultural ties to the Tongass National Forest — the country’s largest national forest — are raising alarms about the plan.

The vast temperate rainforest covers 17 million acres and is also the nation’s largest stand of old-growth trees, many of which are at least 800 years old. Advocates warn that road construction and increased commercial logging threaten subsistence hunting, plant harvesting, and fishing.

Tune into Native America Calling to talk with tribal leaders and others about what’s at stake in Tongass and the future of forest management.

The Tongass National Forest in Alaska. Photo: Keith Burton

Guests on Native America Calling

Chuck Sams (Cayuse and Walla), director of Indigenous Programs at Yale Center for Environmental Justice and the first Native person to serve as director of the National Park Service

Cody Desautel (Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation), president of the Intertribal Timber Council and the executive director of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation in Washington state

Mike Jones (Haida), president of the Organized Village of Kasaan, a federally recognized tribe in Alaska

Ilsxílee Stáng/Gloria Burns (Haida), president of the Ketchikan Indian Community, a federally recognized tribe in Alaska

Joel Jackson (Tlingit and Haida), president of the Organized Village of Kake, a federally recognized tribe in Alaska