**We apologize for the link in the box not working in our earlier email today. If you weren't able to submit a comment, this is the correct link: https://cara.fs2c.usda.gov/Public/CommentInput?project=ORMS-3666 URGENT! Wilderness Watch just learned about this issue impacting Wilderness in Alaska and we need your help today, as the comment period closes Friday, March 8. Please read on and submit your public comment here. In 1980, Congress passed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) to preserve and protect nationally significant public land in Alaska for present and future generations. By that time, unauthorized cabins had been constructed on federal lands, inside and outside areas ANILCA subsequently designated as Wilderness.
Directed by ANILCA, in 1987 the U.S Forest Service created a program that issued special-use permits for these unauthorized cabins. These permits were renewable every five years and nontransferable, terminating upon the death of the last immediate family member of the original claimant. The intent was to phase out these cabins, nowhere more important than in Wilderness, which is managed for its wildness. Just yesterday, Wilderness Watch learned that the Forest Service has an open public comment period, closing today—Friday, March 8—where it has proposed removing restrictions from these permits, including the number of times a permit for an ANILCA cabin may be reissued or who may be listed on that permit. For Wilderness, these changes could mean generations upon generations of a persisting structure.
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You can make a big difference for Wilderness across Alaska by submitting your comment to the Forest Service right away at this link: https://cara.fs2c.usda.gov/Public/CommentInput?project=ORMS-3666 Use your own words, but please tell the Forest Service:
Cabins don’t belong in designated Wilderness. The U.S. Forest Service must leave its policy unchanged and phase out ANILCA cabins, as was the original intent. These cabins were never meant to persist in Wilderness, and to change this policy would undermine ANILCA and the Wilderness Act. |
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Help us protect Wilderness in Alaska and around the country. A generous member has pledged to DOUBLE all first-time donations up to $30,000 this year. |
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