For wildlife like polar bears and caribou, for local communities and Alaska Natives, and for future generations, Alaska Wilderness League strives to protect Alaska's most significant wild land from oil and gas drilling and other industrial threats. Currently, Alaska Wilderness League is working to protect the 
History and Background
The Tongass: America’s Largest National Forest
The Tongass National Forest in the coastal archipelago of southeast Alaska is the last great expanse of old growth rainforest in the United States. At nearly 17 million acres, it is by far the largest National Forest in America.
Its giant Sitka Spruce and other old growth trees are home to wolves, bears, salmon and Bald Eagles that have disappeared from many other parts of the country. It is also home to diverse coastal towns and communities that depend on the forest’s resources for their quality and way of life.
But the natural beauty and abundant wildlife of the Tongass have long been threatened by harmful clearcut logging. More than half of the big-tree, old-growth forest in the Tongass—which represents the biological heart of the rainforest and provides significant cultural and economic value to the people and communities of Southeast Alaska—has been systematically compromised over the past six decades through clearcut logging and associated industrial development including road building.
As recently as the late 1990s, management of the Tongass National Forest was dominated by long term contracts held by two multinational pulp mills. However, the past decade has brought change and hope for the Tongass. In that time, Southeast Alaska has experienced significant changes including the closure of the two pulp mills, the expansion of economies such as tourism and commercial fishing which are dependent on intact watersheds, and an increase in the public’s awareness—nationally and locally—of the importance of protecting a one-of-kind natural resource. Yet nearly two decades have passed since additional Wilderness and other legislated land protections were enacted for high-value areas in the Tongass.
The battle for the protection of the Tongass National Forest is underway right now. You can help conserve for future generations what remains wild and open of this national treasure.
The Chugach: America’s Wildest National Forest
Many of America’s special areas we revere today were sculpted by ice: Glacier National Park, Yosemite, and the towering Rockies of Colorado. Yet there are few places today where one can still see glaciers waging their battle against the land. The Chugach National Forest in southcentral Alaska is one such place.
Pronounced chew-gatch, this 5.6-million acre expanse is the second largest forest in our National Forest system, second only to the Tongass National Forest.
Humans have had a long history in shaping this land; populations of Alaskan natives have inhabited the Chugach for more than 10,000 years. Place names such as Valdez, Cordova, Zaikof Bay, and Prince William Sound are indicative of the historical role played at various times by the Spanish, Russians, and English in shaping the region’s development. Americans have sought much in Alaska, from whale to petroleum oil, fish, gold, copper, furs, and, of course, timber. Following the purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867, an impending private monopoly on the reserves of its coal and copper motivated President Theodore Roosevelt to designate 23 million acres as the Chugach National Forest in 1907.
Although smaller in size today, the Chugach National Forest is still the nation’s wildest. Its 5.5 million remaining acres are 98% roadless. Yet not a single acre has been Congressionally designated as Wilderness. This forest comprises the Kenai Peninsula, home to mountains, glaciers, and world-class fishing; Prince William Sound, site of the Exxon Valdez oil spill; and the Copper River Delta, the largest wetlands area on the Pacific Coast of North America and spawning ground of the famous Copper River Red salmon. The Chugach is the northernmost of America’s National Forests, lying only 500 miles south of the Arctic Circle. One third of the Chugach is composed of rocks and moving ice. The remainder is a diverse tapestry of mountains, lakes and rivers, habitat for myriad plants and animals, and one of the Western Hemisphere’s most important shorebird habitats, a critical habitat supporting over 16 million shorebirds and other waterfowl each year.
