Alaska Timber Collective

You can’t make a Steinway soundboard with young-growth timber. That’s why our industry carefully plans timber harvests today—to ensure these unique Alaska-grown resources can continue to be used for exceptional products for generations to come.

And yet, here we are watching anti-logging environmental NGOs try to shame Steinway & Sons for using responsibly sourced Alaskan lumber to build some of the world’s most iconic pianos—pianos designed to last for generations and played on stages around the world by some of the greatest musicians and composers.

Seriously?

Are we going to shame the astronauts who train in aerospace wind tunnels? Boatbuilders? Acoustic guitar makers? Aircraft engineers? Our military for using old-growth Sitka spruce in specialized, long-life applications?

At what point does the hypocrisy become obvious?

These organizations want you to believe that using a renewable forest resource is inherently wrong—even when that resource is being used to create products that can last for generations, support American manufacturing, and require specific properties that younger timber simply cannot provide.

Old-growth Sitka spruce is not being turned into disposable two-by-fours and thrown away. Its unique properties are being used for highly specialized products where its strength, weight, resonance and stability matter.

The answer isn’t to shame the people who responsibly grow, harvest and manufacture with Alaska timber. The answer is to recognize the value of the resource and manage it so future generations can use it, too.

Alaska timber workers shouldn’t have to apologize for producing something the rest of the world considers extraordinary.

Maybe the environmental NGOs should stop shaming the end users—and start acknowledging what responsibly managed Alaska forests can actually produce.

🚨 CALL TO ACTION 🚨
Submit your public comment on the Repeal of the Roadless Rule. It takes 3 minutes and your voice will be heard.

Go to: https://www.regulations.gov/commenton/FS-2025-0001-223869

Alternative Submission Method via Mail: Hardcopy letters can be sent to the Director, Ecosystem Management Coordination, 201 14th Street SW, Mailstop 1108, Washington, DC 20250-1124.

Tell your personal story: “My family depends on forest access for our job/business/community/livlihood.”

Choose 1 to make your written statement:

✅ Explain one real-world consequence of roadless restrictions in your area.
✅ Share a local example of a road, trail, timber sale, mine, utility project, recreation area, or community that depends on Forest Service access.
✅ Explain how roads connect Southeast communities to jobs, groceries, medical care, recreation and resources.
✅ Explain how you use roads for subsistence (hunting, fishing gathering).
✅ Explain what a year-round mining job or timber industry means to you, local schools and communities.
✅ Explain how federal forest access affects you, your family, or your business.

✅ Press submit & come back and comment when you’re done!!

Repealing the Roadless Rule:
❌ does not mean every project and road would be approved.
❌ does not mean environmental regulations go away.
❌ does not mean corporations would come & clear cut huge swaths of land.
❌ does not add substantial additional acres in the current forest plan for timber harvest.

Since the creation of the Tongass National Forest in 1907, less than 8% of its productive old-growth forest has been harvested. In fact, the USFS Forest Plan prohibits timber harvest on nearly 90% of the Tongass’s existing productive old-growth forest.

Our industry believes in sustainability—and in building an industry that can provide jobs, communities, and opportunities for generations to come.

That’s why we advocate for 250-year rotations on the Tongass National Forest.

We don’t just want to harvest a small portion of the forest. We want to RECREATE old growth—for the forest and for the people so that we can grow 7 generations strong in our future. We are already a third of the way through our first 250-year rotation and on our way to recreate the old growth characteristics needed for the speciality products the world demands.

🌲 FOREST HEALTH DOESN’T HAPPEN BY ACCIDENT.

A healthy forest isn’t simply a forest where every tree is left standing forever.

Forests are living, changing ecosystems. Trees compete for sunlight, water and nutrients. Insects attack. Diseases spread. Trees age, decline and die. And when stands become overly dense or stressed, those problems can spread much faster.

The USDA Forest Service has designated 77.5 MILLION acres across 36 states as areas already experiencing—or at risk of experiencing—insect and disease infestations. (US Forest Service)

And this isn’t theoretical. In 2024 alone, the Forest Service surveyed 438 million acres for tree mortality and damage from insects and diseases. (US Forest Service)

So what do professional foresters do?

They manage the stand.

That can mean thinning overcrowded areas, removing unhealthy or infested trees, creating space for healthy trees to grow, reducing competition, improving species diversity and using treatments designed to slow the spread of pests and disease.

The Forest Service itself says healthy forests are more resilient to insect and disease attacks and that removing unhealthy trees and limiting the spread of invasive pests can help keep forests healthy for future generations. (USDA Forest Service Apps)

🌲 Forestry isn’t just about taking trees out. It’s about deciding which trees should remain, which trees need to go, and how to keep the entire stand healthy.

A forester doesn’t look at a forest and see trees to cut.

They see a forest stand to manage.

And sometimes the best thing you can do for the trees you want to keep is remove the ones competing with them, declining around them, or carrying the next infestation.

Healthy forests require more than admiration. They require stewardship.

Alaskan timber workers. Answer below 👇

Do you agree or disagree? Why?

Did you know that Alaska is still owed over 3,000,000 acres from statehood??

🌲 Fact Friday 🌲

The Tongass National Forest is 16,800,000 acres and almost 6,000,000 acres are Wilderness preserves.