The Biggest Threat to Alaskan Rainforests This Century

Tlingit Elder Wanda Culp and Joshua Wright: "60,000 acres of old-growth are on the chopping block."

Tongass National Forest. Photo by Arabani, CC BY-SA 2.0 Deed.

Welcome! I’m Max Wilbert, the co-author of Bright Green Lies: How the Environmental Movement Lost Its Way and What We Can Do About It and co-founder of Protect Thacker Pass. This newsletter focuses on sustainability, greenwashing, and community organizing to stop the destruction of the planet. You can subscribe for free. Paid subscribers get access to behind-the-scenes reports and unreleased drafts. If you get value from this newsletter, consider a paid subscription. Thanks!

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The Tongass Rainforest in Southeast Alaska is the last great expanse of temperate old growth forest left in the United States, and it has been partially protected since the "Roadless Rule" halted most logging there in 2001.

Now, the "biggest threat to the west coast rainforest this century" is here: Bill S.1889/H.R. 4748, which would permanently privatize 115,200 acres (including 60,000 acres of old-growth) of Tongass National Forest into the hands of Sealaska Corporation — which has already logged massive swathes of the region.

This conversation with Tlingit elder and forest defender Wanda Culp and filmmaker and activist Joshua Wright — who helped launch the Fairy Creek blockade — dives into "indigi-washing," one of the divide and conquer strategies being used defeat public opposition to the destruction of the land.

Wanda and Joshua are looking for allies: organizations and individuals willing to fight this project and defend the Tongass. For more information, visit

https://www.notongassprivatization.org/

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