More Info

Find out what you can do!
Resources, Tongass National Forest info, and more.

• Find out about sustainable forestry
• Learn more about the Tongass National Forest
• Native American Resources
• Guitar Makers’ Efforts

Sustainable Forestry

The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is an organization that encourages practices that will make sure there is a future for our world’s forests.

Make a difference with what you buy.

Purchase FSC wood products. By choosing wood and wood products that are FSC-certified you are ensuring that the wood you purchase has been sustainably harvested. Currently on sale at Staples, Home Depot, Crate and Barrel, West Elm, Williams and Sonoma, Costco…..look on the back of those birthday cards you buy. Hunt for this logo and know that the paper, furniture, and wood you buy comes from sustainable forests that protect old growth areas and supports the economy of the region.

Learn More About the Tongass:

• Sealaska is the largest non-federal landholder in Southeast Alaska. There is currently no restriction on the size of clear cuts on privately owned land in Alaska; Federal lands have restricted limits of 100 acres of clear-cut.

• “In the lower 48 states, 96 percent of old-growth forest of all types has been cut down. The Tongass now represents not only the greatest remaining reserve of huge trees in the U.S., but also nearly one-third of the old-growth temperate rain forest left in the world.”
  — The Truth about Tongass published in National Geographic.

• “Following decades of controversial logging involving ‘high grading’ (i.e., logging that targets the largest and most valuable old‐growth trees) the remaining stands of very large‐tree old‐growth are extremely rare and account for only 0.5 percent of the Tongass.”
  — America’s Rainforest at Risk, a report published by Audubon.
• An open letter from 300 of the world’s-leading scientists raises serious concerns with the Sealaska bill that would endanger some of America’s last remaining old-growth National Forests:
  http://www.pewtrusts.org/news_room_detail.aspx?id=85899399285
• A map of wood loss in the USA since the 1620′s:
  http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange2/current/lectures/deforest/deforest.html
• NASA map which shows global forest heights — look at SE Alaska and you can see just how rare the Tongass is:
  http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/forest-height-map.html
• Visual comparison of the size of old-growth Sitka Spruce, they can also reach up to a millenium in age.

Native American Resources:

• The Central Council Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska
• There are a number of good resources on the Alaska Native Claim Settlement Act (ANCSA), the Act that created the Native Corporations and attempted to deal with Native claims on Alaskan land: one from the Alaska Humanities Forum, the Annotated ANCSA by Paul Ongtooguk and the Wikipedia entry
• “We can manage a large resource, take commodities, derive income from it, and still have a pristine looking forest, clean air, clean water, and spiritual feelings from the forest. And we’ve got more timber now than when we started.”
  — from a video on the Menominee Native American tribe of Neopit, Wisconsin, who are FSC certified loggers.
• Sealaska Shareholders Underground, a facebook group where Sealaska shareholders can speak freely about their Corporation

Guitar Makers’ Efforts:

• “Sustaining the supply of natural materials isn’t a new idea in the musical instrument industry, which depends on old-growth wood to achieve the best tonal quality.”  http://uk.reuters.com/article/2008/03/23/us-forests-idUKN2222683220080323
• “Christian F. Martin IV is the sixth generation to run his family’s renowned guitar-making business, C. F. Martin & Company. But he is surely the first to worry about the availability of the distinctive woods needed to build Martin guitars, the choice of musicians like Sting, Paul Simon, Jimmy Buffett and John Mayer.” http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/07/business/smallbusiness/07sbiz.html
• Martin & Co, the oldest surviving guitar maker, has made sustainable wood guitars out of cherry and recently produced the entirely FSC-certified D Mahogany 09. Gibson, has a 2012 goal of sustainable wood in 80% of their guitars. Ensure the future of our forests and buy the most sustainable wood guitars out there: http://www.greenecoservices.com/green-guitar-music-to-our-ears/
• “The head of Gibson, home of the Les Paul guitar, has warned that the rare and exotic woods used to craft the best instruments are running out at such a rate that the guitar could become an endangered species.” Playing for time: Wood shortages threaten world’s best guitars from The Independent