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Scientists ask Obama to protect old growth forest

FILE - This undated file photo provided by the U.S. Forest Service shows a section of the Tongass National Forest in Southeast Alaska. More than 75 scientists are appealing to President Obama to create a policy for preserving old-growth forest, like Tongass. The U.S. and Canadian scientists sent a letter to the president Wednesday June 25, 2014, urging creation of a policy by the U.S. Forest Service. (AP Photo/U.S. Forest Service, File) FILE - This undated file photo provided by the U.S. Forest Service shows a section of the Tongass National Forest in Southeast Alaska. More than 75 scientists are appealing to President Obama to create a policy for preserving old-growth forest, like Tongass. The U.S. and Canadian scientists sent a letter to the president Wednesday June 25, 2014, urging creation of a policy by the U.S. Forest Service. (AP Photo/U.S. Forest Service, File)

By Associated Press June 25, 2014 3 min read

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) – More than 75 U.S. and Canadian scientists have sent a letter to President Barack Obama asking for a policy to preserve what remains of America’s old-growth forest.

The scientists include two former chiefs of the U.S. Forest Service, Jack Ward Thomas and Mike Dombeck. They say less than 10 percent of the old-growth forest before European settlement is still intact

Only fragments remain in the eastern United States and the largest trees in the Pacific Northwest were targeted more than a century ago. The largest extent of remaining old-growth forest is in southeast Alaska’s Tongass National Forest but faces the threat of logging, the scientists said.

“As far as I know, the Tongass is the only national forest where they are still clear-cutting old growth,” said John Schoen, a former state of Alaska research biologist.

Owen Graham, director of the Alaska Forest Association, said the Forest Service has been carefully planning appropriate timber sales and should be left to do its job.