Thanks to Ash­ley Brady-Pow­er, Dr. Seuss, and Scott Chambers.

Today begins an impor­tant week for the trees. Trout Unlim­it­ed and Sit­ka Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety are send­ing a team of com­mer­cial and sports fish­er­men to Wash­ing­ton D.C., where they’ll lob­by for increased fund­ing for habi­tat conservation/restoration in the Ton­gass Nation­al For­est. Now is a crit­i­cal time for this effort: on Tues­day, the Senate’s Nat­ur­al Resource Com­mit­tee meets to deter­mine the 2013 Forestry bud­get. (Learn more from TU’s press release.)

Hooked read­ers may remem­ber December’s posts on the skewed man­age­ment of the Ton­gass. The world’s largest remain­ing tem­per­ate rain­for­est, the Ton­gass is home to 70,000 humans, 30,000 bears, all 5 species of salmon, as well as deer, wolves, and over 300 species of birds. Its 17 mil­lion acres blan­ket South­east Alas­ka, where coastal com­mu­ni­ties are sus­tained by less than 200 tim­ber-relat­ed jobs and more than 7000 fish­ing-relat­ed jobs. Yet the For­est Service’s annu­al bud­get directs $25 mil­lion toward log­ging and road build­ing, and $1.5 mil­lion – that’s 1 point 5 – to con­ser­va­tion and water­shed restoration.

Many of you bris­tled at that dis­crep­an­cy. You fired off emails and phone calls, urg­ing a man­age­ment plan reflec­tive of the region’s actu­al eco­nom­ic and cul­tur­al val­ues. You wrote a small moun­tain of let­ters, which will be hand-deliv­ered to Con­gress and the For­est Ser­vice on Mon­day. You’re an inspir­ing team of Lorax­es, friends, and your voic­es are mak­ing an impact. Thank you.

You don’t have to be an Alaskan or a fish­er­man to care about this fund­ing dis­crep­an­cy. In an awe­some show of com­mu­ni­ty orga­niz­ing, Sit­ka Salmon Tours recent­ly took the Ton­gass on the road. Through events in Illi­nois, Wis­con­sin, and Min­neso­ta, Nic Mink and Helen Sch­noes explained the crit­i­cal role of this rare ecosys­tem, where “the salmon are in the trees.”

Their audi­ences got it, and they ral­lied. I’ve read the 80 let­ters our Mid­west­ern allies con­tributed. It’s a pow­er­ful expe­ri­ence, hear­ing strangers voice the con­nect­ed­ness between their own lives and this dis­tant wild that many will nev­er see firsthand.

Here are some snip­pets of what they wrote:

“I am writ­ing because my life is rich­er know­ing that wild places like this still exist in our world. As a teacher in Illi­nois, my stu­dents and I do not encounter these gor­geous wild land­scapes, nor do we see rivers and lakes so abun­dant with fish.”

“It is impor­tant to me that the food I con­sume is healthy and sus­tain­able. I know wild Alaskan salmon is both, but I fear for the future. When more mon­ey is allo­cat­ed to the destruc­tive acts such as the log­ging of old growth forests rather than to restora­tion of salmon habi­tats, I fear for the future.”

“This fund­ing gap would be sil­ly if its reach were not so dam­ag­ing. There exists a gross dis­con­nect: the tree removal harms salmon habi­tats, which in turn neg­a­tive­ly affect the salmon pop­u­la­tion and is  much less eco­nom­i­cal­ly valu­able than the $986.1 mil­lion that salmon fish­ing and hatch­eries generate.”

“While only a small por­tion of peo­ple in the Mid­west will ever have the plea­sure of trav­el­ing to the Ton­gass, many of us val­ue the for­est and its salmon as impor­tant nation­al treasures.”

“I don’t have to be from Alas­ka to under­stand that salmon is one of the most sus­tain­able and renew­able resources of our entire Nation­al For­est system.”

“We need to see our forests for more than just the trees.”

Beau­ti­ful­ly said.

Great big thanks to every­one who’s already urged the For­est Ser­vice to re-exam­ine their Ton­gass bud­get. If you haven’t done so, it’s not too late — NOW is the crit­i­cal time to chime in. Please take a moment today to sum­mon your inner Lorax and send a quick email on behalf of the trees… and the salmon… the streams… and all of us. Direct your mes­sages to For­est Ser­vice Chief Tom Tid­well (ttidwell@fs.fed.us), USDA Under­sec­re­tary Har­ris Sher­man (harris.sherman@usda.gov), Sen­a­tor Mark Begich, and Sen­a­tor Lisa Murkows­ki.

Need an exam­ple to get you start­ed? Whether sev­er­al con­cise sen­tences or an impas­sioned page, your words are an essen­tial con­tri­bu­tion. Please share your mes­sage in the com­ments, and much grat­i­tude for your advocacy.

“Salmon Spawn­ing,” by photographer/author Amy Gulick (Salmon in the Trees)