Federal law doesn’t mandate minimum amounts of logging in Alaska’s Tongass rainforest, judge says

By James Brooks
News From The States
March 17, 2026
Category: Forestry
Region: US West

A federal judge in Alaska has rejected a lawsuit that sought to reinstate a management plan that would allow heavier logging in the world’s largest temperate old-growth rainforest. The result leaves an Obama-era management plan in place, but it could be short-lived: The administration of President Donald Trump is already at work on a new plan that could allow more logging in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest. …The three groups sued the U.S. Department of Agriculture — the parent organization of the U.S. Forest Service — last year, alleging in part that the federal Tongass Timber Reform Act of 1990 required the Forest Service to offer enough timber sales to meet market demand. Gleason ruled otherwise, finding that TTRA does not impose “a mandatory duty” on the Forest Service to ensure that market demand is met by Tongass timber sales.

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