The Tongass: America’s Climate Forest Is Again at Risk

At nearly 17 million acres, the Tongass National Forest is more than the largest national forest in the country—it's also the largest intact temperate rainforest in the world. It spans Southeast Alaska's islands, fjords, waterways, and mountains, and is the ancestral homeland of the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian peoples. What’s more, this old-growth forest plays an important role in addressing climate change, but its ability to continue serving that role is now again at risk.

For more than two decades, the Roadless Rule has protected much of our last remaining wild national forests, generally prohibiting new road construction and commercial timber harvesting in inventoried roadless areas while allowing for active management to mitigate fire risk, ensure community safety, and maintain healthy habitat.

But the U.S. Forest Service released a proposal to repeal this long-standing policy, which would remove protections for 44 million acres of undeveloped forestland—or around a third of our National Forest System. The largest concentration of roadless areas is in the Tongass. The Draft Environmental Impact Statement and Proposed Rule were published on August 20, 2026, which kicked off a 30-day comment period that ends Sept. 21, 2026.

The Tongass is a global stronghold for birds. It supports approximately 350 bird species, including about 40% of all bird species found in North America. The forest contains the world's highest density of nesting Marbled Murrelets and Bald Eagles, while hundreds of thousands of migrating shorebirds stop here each spring before continuing north to Arctic breeding grounds. Unique subspecies—including the Queen Charlotte Goshawk and Prince of Wales Spruce Grouse—depend on the mature and old-growth forests that make the Tongass special.

The Tongass is sometimes referred to as America’s Climate Forest. With an extraordinary capacity to store and sequester carbon, it has earned nicknames like “Lungs of North America” and “America’s Amazon.”

Former Audubon Alaska senior scientist Dr. John Schoen says that “The Tongass holds more than 20% of all carbon stored in national forests in the U.S., and the largest trees store more above-ground carbon than other forests." According to the U.S. Forest Service, the Tongass contains an estimated 70 tons of aboveground carbon per acre, making its mature forests an important long-term carbon store.

For its more than 400 species of fish and wildlife, the Tongass is remarkable not simply because it is large, but because it remains whole.

Schoen describes the Tongass as “a complete ecosystem.” Based on his expertise, "The Tongass represents the only public lands left in the United States, if not the world, that still has intact watersheds" that include the full diversity of old-growth forests and "all their ecological parts." That intactness allows natural relationships to flourish—salmon feed bears, bears transport those nutrients into the forest, and ancient trees stabilize streams that support future generations of fish and wildlife.

The Tongass's healthy waterways sustain some of the world's most productive wild salmon runs, supporting subsistence harvests and commercial and sport fishing, as well as the businesses and communities that depend on them. Salmon contribute approximately $1 billion annually to the Southeast Alaska economy. Tourism and recreation add substantially more, making the Tongass central to a regional economy built around its natural resources. What’s more, the seafood and tourism industries account for roughly one-quarter of Southeast Alaska's labor force.

The Tongass is currently managed under the Tongass Land and Resource Management Plan, a long-term blueprint approved in 1997 and amended in 2008 and 2016 to help guide decisions about conservation, recreation, restoration, and timber management across the forest. This land management plan is also currently under revision, and there will be an opportunity for the public to comment in early 2027.

For now, we cannot afford to lose Roadless Rule protections for the Tongass and across our National Forests. Act now by joining us in urging the Forest Service to uphold protections for roadless areas before the September 21 deadline.