U.S. Limits Tongass Timber Harvests

The Clinton administration is placing an additional 234,000 acres of the nation’s largest national forest off-limits to logging and other development.

The maximum allowable timber harvest in the Tongass National Forest in Alaska will be cut by 30% a year, and land open to logging will be reduced by 15%, to about 576,000 acres, according to changes in the forest’s management plan.

Under the changes, nearly half of the land that may be used for logging can be harvested only once every 200 years, twice the current figure. The changes are intended to protect more ancient trees in the 17 million-acre forest.