January 14, 2010
Thursday

I live in Alaska and love southeast. I have lived in the Tongass National Forest all of my life. My mother is Haida and our family is from Hydaburg. I am 1/2 Alaskan native and the other half a native of Alaska (there is a slight difference). I have four daughters and a beautiful wife who was also born and raised here. We graduated from Ketchikan High School together, got together, and have built our life here in southeast. I own five or six acres on Prince of Wales Island and fished of the west coast of Prince of Wales Island for many years, and worked in the timber industry at the Ketchikan pulp mill in the off season and also the canneries around town prior to fishing. I now teach at the University of Alaska and run my own construction company in Ketchikan.

I tell you all of this because many of us have the same story -- you really gotta love it here to live here , the last thing we would want is to ruin our forests ,

I have watched the environmentalist movement (save the whales ) but kill the herring, and now save the trees and fish but kill our economy and an entire industry we cannot survive without. Since the fifties clear cutting in a very small portion of the Tongass has not only built communities and economies, but it has enhanced the deer population and during those years our salmon stocks have increased and have had ups and downs but overall Alaska - and in particular southeast - has seen some incredible runs of fish (some bad runs but that had nothing to do with logging). Cutting trees down has nothing to do with saving the environment , this misguided effort by the environmentalists groups to save us from ourselves is not wanted , not justified , and is not backed by any reliable science to support there efforts. I read about the power of these groups to halt timber sales on the drop of a hat and I am sick to death of you guys, and we have seen entire communities
"decimated"extinct" plundered "devastated"depleted" diminished" over regulated and beaten down by an ideology that belongs in a comic book. You're living in a fantasy world saving the few trees in the Tongass in a part of the world that in the grand scheme of things, few see, does nothing but stroke you "tree huggers'" egos and kill the communities my wife and I grew up in and make it almost impossible for my kids to seek out a life here in Alaska. The natural order of things and natural resource development has and is being designed by a much higher power (oh what the heck I believe designed by god) and has been designed for man to utilize. Trees are meant to be cut , oil is meant to be drilled and burned , gold and ore are meant to be dug up and malls are meant to be built, that's the order of things -- environmentalists get over it and get off our backs.

My religious beliefs are my own so save the criticism of my reference to god, and it's "MERRY CHRISTMAS" NOT HAPPY HOLIDAYS.

Charles Edwardson
Ketchikan, AK

About: "liflong Alaskan, fished since I was thirteen till I was thirty, ran my own boat, worked at the pulp mill at the end of their heyday ,I own land on Prince of Wales -- love it there, now run my own construction company and teach at the college"

Received January 12, 2009 - Published January 14, 2010

Related:

Environmental Groups Sue to Stop Huge Tongass Timber Sale; Rep. Young Expresses Disgust Over Logjam Lawsuit

 

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