Another Reason to Say No to Sealaska
Seems like the state of Alaska is becoming one big Make Your Own Endangered Species Kit. Polar bears, Cook Inlet beluga whales, and now this.
The Anchorage Daily News is reporting yet another reason that the current provision to allow Sealaska Native Corporation to cherry pick swaths of prime old-growth forest for clear-cutting and profit is a bad, bad idea. Three top officials, formerly with the Alaska Department of Fish & Game have written a letter to Governor Sean Parnell.
The three say in a letter that the bill in Congress could create severe economic problems for Southeast Alaska if it leads to the Queen Charlotte goshawk and the Alexander Archipelago wolf being listed under the federal Endangered Species Act.
The letter says a federal plan is in place to keep the two species off the list by creating old-growth forest reserves where logging would not occur. It says Sealaska Corp., a Juneau Native corporation, now wants several of those old-growth reserves for logging.
The letter says if either the wolf or the goshawk was listed, it would mean the end of the logging industry in the region.
So far the individuals have not been identified, nor is a copy of the letter available on the ADN website.
I like goshawks. Watched one catch and fly off with a crow last summer. I also like crows, and enjoy watching them nest in my trees, but we have ‘way more of them than goshawks. Goshawks seem like the F-15′s of the forest understory – incredibly fast and agile, fierce and determined predators.
The hawk is back this year, I can hear its cry as it flies along the ridge above the house. Hopefully it has a mate and a nest up there. Needless to say, there has been no logging in this area for at least a century, with the exception of a powerline cut about 40 years ago and some lots cleared for houses. Old growth trees with eagle nests dot the mountainside.
How interesting that this potential wrench in the Sealaska cherry picking works has been discovered. I hope it can be enforced. Also note that these are _former_ ADF&G staff – somehow I suspect the present staff of survivors quakes in its shoes regularly as threats from on high filter down and public outrage floods in about one beleagured animal after another.
why can’t we just leave some places on this earth alone?
great question! I guess some people (republicans
) don’t think ahead…they say they don’t want a national debt for their kids & grandkids (base argument sake only), but I tend not to believe them (hypocrites) when they don’t care what kind of planet, air, water, & food supply they’re leaving for future generations. LIARS!
repukes complain over and over about the nat’l debt and the future.
yet they never admit to being the party of YES when it came to spending that
future. the repukes are responsibile for 90 percent of the nat’l debt.
would seem that as long as the repukes hold the nat’l credit card, spending is fine.
look it up, google, national debt by president
YES! they are! they don’t care about the future…they just want to be rich (steal our money) NOW!
This Sealaska bill is just one big bad after another, with vocal bipartison opposition from the people that live here. This issue that this bill would probably result in T & E listing for these species, due to Sealaska grabbing and logging much of the best remaining old growth habitat, including five old-growth reserves, was brought up to senator Murkowski way back in October 2009.
She ignored it then too. Now, hopefully, with these three ADFG people bringing it up again, Sealaska and Murkowski won’t be able to keep sweeping critical facts like this under the rug, in their inexplicable pursuit of this very bad legislation. This bill is terrible for communities, terrible for public uses, environmentally destructive, and now the listing of wolf and goshawk, which would shut down ALL logging in the area if that happens.
Isn’t that like Sealaska saying, “If we can’t have these public lands, no one can have them!” ??
There is NO TLINGET WORD FOR GOSHAWK! That’s your first clue about that so-called “endangered specie. It isn’t Native to southeast Alaska.
Secondly, has anyone seen how Sealaska logged clear down to the bone in southeast? Of course, they did clear cutting around villages, not hunting or fishing lodges. And the shareholders of Sealaska didn’t benefit one jot or tittle.
They didn’t practice husbandry either. They just cut clear to the ground. Ugly.
Remember the old American Indian saying ‘Paleface speak with forked tongue’ or something similar to that effect. Same thing, different time, different race of people. Then when the deed is done and the mess is made, the majority finds out that it was a handful of greedy men acting on the behalf of the rest of us. Modern technology is the best thing that’s happened in these trying times. It’s almost impossible to sneak things through these days.
Seaalaska does not need to change the original land agreement. They will just go in and strip the land like always. Their greed is so relevant. /that is all they care about.
And the REAL Alaskan Natives say “We only take what we need.” Who is in charge here, The People or a HANDFUL of Greedy Men supposedly representing them? Like blogger ‘susan’ points out, “Their greed is so relevant./that is all they care about.”