Musicians for Forests: Stop Clearcutting Alaska's Tongass National Forest
- von: Musicians for Forests
- empfänger: Key Officials and Representatives in the US Department of Agriculture, US Forest Service, and House Committee on Natural Resources
We, the undersigned Music Industry (professional musicians, acoustic guitar consumers and manufacturers), urge you to amend the management of old-growth Sitka spruce in the Tongass National Forest by the end of 2016. As participants in Musicians for Forests, a movement to place a moratorium on all instruments made from clearcut old-growth Sitka spruce, we call for clearcutting old-growth trees to end immediately.
Old-growth Sitka spruce has long held a choice position in the production of acoustic guitars. However, there are ways for the Music Industry to employ this precious resource without purchasing clearcut old-growth timber and instruments made from that timber.
Clearcutting certainly has its place and appropriate application in the spectrum of forestry tools. But clearcutting ancient Sitka spruce, particularly along critical waterways that support our nation’s greatest commercial salmon fishery, is on the wrong side of science, economics and history. Alternative, sustainable methods allow for the harvest of this limited resource, including salvaging wind fall trees or selective harvesting individual trees.
I commend your efforts to enhance and amend the Tongass Land Management Plan, but strongly encourage you to include protections that entirely ban the clearcutting of old-growth Sitka spruce and promote sustainable harvest. Furthermore, I encourage you to solidify and enact these amendments by the end of December 2016.
Once stands of old-growth Sitka spruce are clearcut, they are gone. For our lifetime. For out children’s lifetimes. They are gone forever. We encourage you to leave a legacy of music by banning the clearcutting of old-growth Sitka spruce in the Tongass.
We, the undersigned Music Industry (professional musicians, acoustic guitar consumers and manufacturers), urge you to amend the management of old-growth Sitka spruce in the Tongass National Forest by the end of 2016. As participants in Musicians for Forests, a movement to place a moratorium on all instruments made from clearcut old-growth Sitka spruce, we call for clearcutting old-growth trees to end immediately.
Old-growth Sitka spruce has long held a choice position in the production of acoustic guitars. However, there are ways for the Music Industry to employ this precious resource without purchasing clearcut old-growth timber and instruments made from that timber.
Clearcutting certainly has its place and appropriate application in the spectrum of forestry tools. But clearcutting ancient Sitka spruce, particularly along critical waterways that support our nation’s greatest commercial salmon fishery, is on the wrong side of science, economics and history. Alternative, sustainable methods allow for the harvest of this limited resource, including salvaging wind fall trees or selective harvesting individual trees.
I commend your efforts to enhance and amend the Tongass Land Management Plan, but strongly encourage you to include protections that entirely ban the clearcutting of old-growth Sitka spruce and promote sustainable harvest. Furthermore, I encourage you to solidify and enact these amendments by the end of December 2016.
Once stands of old-growth Sitka spruce are clearcut, they are gone. For our lifetime. For out children’s lifetimes. They are gone forever. We encourage you to leave a legacy of music by banning the clearcutting of old-growth Sitka spruce in the Tongass.
