cover image Tongass: Pulp Politics and the Fight for the Alaska Rain Forest

Tongass: Pulp Politics and the Fight for the Alaska Rain Forest

Kathie Durbin. Oregon State University Press, $19.95 (336pp) ISBN 978-0-87071-466-5

A vast, splendid coastal woodland in southeast Alaska, the Tongass has been home to native peoples for centuries, and to the timber industry's clearcuts and pulp mills for decades. Durbin (Tree Huggers) relates the political history of the Tongass since the late 19th century to the present., following particularly closely the money, popular movements, court motions, claims and counterclaims of the past few decades. The result is a blow-by-blow account of a messy controversy and an impressive example of thorough journalism. Complex struggles among tribes, companies, activists, the U.S. Forest Service and Congress ended in an environmental victory when the last big pulp mills closed in the early 1990s. Though it includes exploitative corporations and crusading ecologists, the story holds plenty of ironies too. The Alaska Native Claims Act (ANCA) of 1971 encouraged tribes to form corporations that could then sell forest rights for profit: when the Angoon Tlingit decided to try to protect uncut Admiralty Island, another tribe claimed the right to sell its wood. Durbin's study will reward anyone who wants to learn about Alaska or about environmental politics and law, whether out of historical curiosity or to prepare for the next big forest fight. (Nov.)