The Issue:

For more than 50 years, timber companies have had access to the biggest and best trees in the Tongass National Forest in Alaska, leaving Americans to foot the bill. These roads are losing taxpayers millions of dollars.

What's at Stake:

One of the last great American forests, the Tongass provides essential habitat for wolves, grizzly and black bears, salmon, Sitka black-tailed deer, and many other wildlife species.

How You Can Help:

When the U.S. Senate votes on the 2005 Interior Appropriations bill -- possibly in November 2004 -- Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) plans to offer an amendment to prohibit the Forest Service from subsidizing the timber industry by constructing new logging roads into the Tongass.

And in a wonderful victory for conservation, the House of Representatives already approved an amendment identical to Senator McCain's.

Now the Senate needs to act.

Please Write a Letter to your Senators, urging them to save the Tongass National Forest.

It truly is a magnificent wildlife refuge, and there are far too few left in this country.

Future generations of nature lovers will applaud your action.

Dear  Senator,

As your constituent and someone very concerned about prudent management of our nation's natural resources, I urge you to vote "yes" on Senator McCain's Tongass Subsidy Amendment to the fiscal year 2005 Interior appropriations bill.

In so doing, you will be following the lead of a bipartisan group of 222 members of the House who in June passed an identical amendment. I also urge you to oppose any anti-environmental riders that could open the Tongass National Forest to more logging.

This subsidy amendment would end the waste of millions of taxpayer dollars on logging in the Tongass.

According to the Forest Service's own records, the agency cost taxpayers $35 million in 2001 by selling trees in the Tongass for far less than they are worth. Clear cuts and timber roads don't just damage the Tongass; they also damage the hunting, fishing, recreation, and tourism industries that are the foundation of the southeast Alaska economy.

The existing network of roads is sufficient for maintaining an ecologically sustainable timber cut on the Tongass, while allowing the Forest Service to judiciously apply road maintenance funds to these roads rather than building new ones.

The annual subsidy to the timber industry also degrades an international treasure.

Established by Theodore Roosevelt in 1907, the Tongass National Forest is the largest intact temperate rain forest in the world.

Its giant Sitka Spruce and other old growth trees had already been growing for hundreds of years before Columbus came to America, and it is home to wolves, bears, and salmon that have already disappeared from many other parts of this country.

Please do all you can to support this vitally important amendment.

Sincerely,