Sitkans testify: Keep Roadless Rule

Cosley Bruno, with Sitka Conservation Society, gives public testimony on rescinding the 2001 Roadless Rule in the Tongass Wednesday evening at ANB Founders Hall. (James Poulson / Daily Sitka Sentinel)

By Anna Laffrey

Daily Sitka Sentinel

All who testified in the Alaska subsistence hearings the U.S. Forest Service held via teleconference Wednesday said the 2001 Roadless Rule should be kept in place to protect subsistence harvest opportunities, particularly on the Tongass National Forest. 

Speakers said the rule, which limits road construction and timber harvesting on National Forest System lands, is critical for people being able to harvest fish and wildlife on the lands, and protects Alaska Native cultural traditions. The forest also sequesters carbon, provides clean air and water, and supports commercial and recreational fishing, tourism and other activities, they said.

The hearings are being held in connection with the formal proposal to rescind the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule that the U.S. Department of Agriculture filed in August.

Wednesday was the first time the Forest Service has held virtual, teleconference hearings regarding the Roadless Rule, said Nicole Grewe, deputy Alaska region forester for USFS, as she gave opening remarks Wednesday.

Grewe facilitated the two online hearings held at 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. Wednesday. An in-person hearing was held in Ketchikan Tuesday, and another was held in Anchorage on Thursday. A hearing in Craig is set for Oct. 26. 

Sitkans made up half of the 26 speakers in Wednesday’s remote hearings.

Harriet Miyasato Beleal, 93, called in from the ANB Founders Hall, where Sitka Conservation Society staff had invited the community to share a meal and tune into the subsistence hearing. 

More than 30 Sitkans were present at the hall as Beleal spoke. She described her ancestors’ role in founding the Alaska Native Brotherhood and Sisterhood, and advocating for civil rights, including subsistence rights. She said that the work continues. 

“Our people need to express that we were the first people here and are the original people, so please pay attention and listen,” Beleal said.

Patricia Alexander, a lifetime member of the Alaska Native Sisterhood, testified from the ANB Founders Hall that “the proposed Roadless Rule change will negatively affect our subsistence way of life more than anything that comes to mind."

"Deer habitat would be destroyed along with salmon habitat,” she said. "Our forest provides for the food that we live on in Southeast Alaska.”

The Roadless Rule prevents road construction, timber harvesting and other development on 45 million acres of wild lands, including some 9.3 million acres on the 17-million-acre Tongass, and some 5.4 million acres on the Chugach National Forest.

After the USDA formally filed to rescind the rule in August, a draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) found that removing it could impact Alaska subsistence harvest opportunities.

The draft EIS asserts that, because the proposal to rescind the Roadless Rule is a rule-making process and not a program-level decision, the Forest Service is not required to conduct a formal subsistence evaluation, as outlined in Section 810 of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act.

Grewe said Wednesday that “the Forest Service, however, is voluntarily conducting subsistence on-site and virtual hearings within the vicinity of involved areas to provide opportunity for the public to provide testimony regarding subsistence effects.”

The draft EIS says the Forest Service also is holding consultation sessions with tribal governments that request them, and “a final Tribal Impact Summary Statement that will be included with the final rule."

The draft EIS considers three alternatives for action on the Roadless Rule. 

Grewe explained Wednesday how the three alternatives would affect Alaska: the “no action” alternative would keep the rule in place; the second action would rescind it entirely across Alaska, and the third would remove protections in certain areas near roads and development. On the Tongass, the third alternative would have the same effect as full rescission, affecting about 9.3 million acres.

All 26 people who testified Wednesday supported the “no action” alternative.

Kevin Hood of Juneau, a Forest Service employee for more than 20 years, spoke on behalf of the nonprofit Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics (FSEEE) in favor of “no action.” FSEEE is concerned that the Forest Service isn't holding regionwide, in-person subsistence hearings on the proposed rescission, Hood said. 

He questioned why the August 2026 draft EIS incorporates testimony from the public hearings the Forest Service held in roughly 20 Southeast communities in 2019, when the first Trump administration moved to repeal Alaska Roadless protections.

Sitka's Darby Osborne recalled testifying in the 2019 hearings when she was 15 years old. 

“I find it a little saddening to have to do it all over again now at the age of 22,” Osborne said, before speaking in support of "no action."

Hood said much has changed since 2019. For instance, he said, the Federal Subsistence Board in 2025 determined the Ketchikan area is rural, adding roughly 13,000 people as federally qualified subsistence users and thereby changing subsistence harvest dynamics in Southeast; the draft EIS does not mention these changes.

Others who testified noted that, since 2019, Alaskans have seen surging fuel prices, higher grocery prices and more extreme weather events affecting subsistence harvesting opportunities.

Patricia Phillips of Pelican described the effects of climate change on her home area of Lisianski Strait and Lisianski Inlet.

“We're losing some of our ability to harvest certain foods because of the warming conditions,” Phillips said, noting how invasive plants and barnacles are affecting plants and seaweeds that she harvests. 

She spoke for “no action” on the Roadless Rule, because logging “causes rivers to warm up, and that warming up could cause a reduction in the ability of our salmon to spawn and produce a resource that so many of us rely on.”

“I worry that with further clear cutting of the Tongass, the forest is going to lose its overstory – the area where deer will find protection from winter conditions,” Phillips said.

Many participants spoke of how healthy forests support robust deer populations that are critical to food security for Southeast Alaskans who otherwise depend on barge service for food.

Judith Ramos of Yakutat shared data from her time as a subsistence researcher in Yakutat, showing how 90% of locals at that time relied on wild foods to feed their families. 

Many described how Alaska Native cultural traditions depend on the Tongass being intact.

Paulette Moreno of Sitka said that “if the Roadless Rule (rescission) goes through as proposed and these restrictions are lifted, I believe that this will inhibit our ability to gather and collect our traditional foods that we have done for tens of thousands of years.”

She described “the possibility of pollution, the possibility of mining, the possibility of many other negative impacts. … Then we're not able to teach our children – taking away the ability for Native people and Alaskans to teach their children how to harvest.”

Adrien Lee spoke of the social effects of logging near her home community of Hoonah. 

“We're still recovering from the massive clear cutting in our region and problems with partying from other members outside of the community, (who were) coming in to do the jobs of harvesting the forests,” Lee said. “The impacts with addictions and violence were huge in our community.”

Participants in Wednesday’s hearings noted that Wednesday was Orange Shirt Day, or the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, an annual observance that honors Indian boarding school survivors and commemorates children who died at the schools.

Yolanda Fulmer of Juneau drew connections between the international reconciliation day, and the Trump administration’s move to rescind the Roadless Rule. 

“Today our Indigenous communities honor Orange Shirt Day and Every Child Matters, and I keep thinking about what those words actually require of us for the future,” Fulmer said. “For Indigenous children, that means protecting their cultural ties to the land.”

She said that Trump administration leaders are not listening to thousands of public comments from Alaskans who are unified in saying that they do not want Roadless protections eliminated. 

“Protecting the Tongass is not anti-economic development,” Fulmer said. “It is recognizing that an intact forest is an economy. It's an Indigenous economy for our future. We are still here, and we are telling you: do not take away what our future generations have a right to inherit. We need to maintain the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule. We need to protect the Tongass.”

A total of 26 people spoke between the two hearings Wednesday, including at least 13 from Sitka, by the Sentinel's count.

Written public comments on the proposed Roadless Rule rescission may be submitted online through Oct. 6 via the Federal Register listing number 2026-18648 on the Federal Register website. 

• This article originally appeared in the Daily Sitka Sentinel.