Governor Dunleavy Enters State of Alaska into Shared Stewardship Agreement with the U.S. Forest Service to Increase Productivity of Alaska’s ForestsGovernor Dunleavy Enters[...]

Today Governor Dunleavy entered the State of Alaska Division of Forestry and Fire Protection into a shared stewardship agreement with the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service.

The agreement will support coordinating active forest management and increasing economic opportunities for young growth timber while meeting market demand for old growth timber.

The agreement stems from President Trump's Executive Order 14225, "Immediate Expansion of American Timber Production," which identified timber production as critical to the nation's well-being.

The agreement will establish an interagency team to identify priority goals and opportunities and will enable the State of Alaska to carry out forest restoration projects on 300,000 acres of the Tongass National Forest.

"As someone who has worked in a logging camp in Southeast Alaska, I know how important having a working forest is to communities in Southeast," said Gov. Dunleavy. "This is great news for the people of Alaska and will be a lifeline to the blue-collar Alaskan workers in Southeast Alaska who President Biden and previous administrations sought to keep out of work by managing the Tongass as if it were a National Park."

"This shared stewardship agreement is a level of federal coordination and prioritization to maximize the value of Alaska's national forests unlike what Alaska has seen in years," said DNR Commissioner-designee John Crowther. "The goals of the agreement - economic opportunity, public safety, forest health, community resiliency, and rural prosperity - are needed now more than ever in our national forests to ensure Alaska can grow into the future."