A U.S. federal judge in Alaska has dismissed a lawsuit that sought to compel large-scale logging in the Tongass National Forest, the world’s largest temperate old-growth rainforest. Judge Sharon Gleason ruled in March 2026 C.E. that the Tongass Timber Reform Act does not require the U.S. Forest Service to meet private market demand with timber sales — a decision that conservation advocates, tribal groups, and fishing communities called a significant legal win for old-growth protection.
At a glance
- Tongass National Forest: Spanning roughly 17 million acres in southeast Alaska, it is the largest national forest in the United States and one of the most intact temperate rainforests remaining on Earth.
- Court ruling: Judge Gleason found that the Tongass Timber Reform Act of 1990 imposes no “mandatory duty” on the Forest Service to match timber sales to industry demand — making harvest levels a discretionary agency decision, not a legal obligation.
- Coalition of interveners: Tribal nations, tourism operators, commercial fishing interests, and environmental organizations joined the case on the side of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, reflecting how broadly the forest’s fate is felt across Alaskan communities.
What the ruling means
The lawsuit was filed by Viking Lumber, Alcan Timber, and the Alaska Forest Association, represented by the Pacific Legal Foundation. They argued that the 1990 Tongass Timber Reform Act required the Forest Service to offer timber sales large enough to satisfy market demand. Judge Gleason rejected that reading entirely.
“Whether the harvest levels are designed to actually meet market demand is a discretionary agency action, not a mandatory requirement imposed by the TTRA on the Forest Service,” she wrote in her order.
That distinction matters enormously. If the court had agreed with the plaintiffs, the Forest Service could have faced legal pressure to dramatically increase logging — even in stands of old-growth trees that take centuries to mature. The ruling instead confirms that the agency has the authority to prioritize conservation, watershed health, and ecosystem integrity when setting harvest levels.
Why the Tongass matters so much
The Tongass is not just large — it is ecologically irreplaceable. Its old-growth forests store vast quantities of carbon, filter the water that sustains some of Alaska’s most productive wild salmon runs, and shelter species including brown bears, Sitka black-tailed deer, and marbled murrelets, a seabird that nests almost exclusively in ancient forest canopy.
For the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, the forest is also homelands. Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian peoples have lived in relationship with these ecosystems for thousands of years. Their participation — alongside fishing and tourism businesses — in the coalition that intervened on behalf of the Department of Agriculture reflects a broad and deeply rooted stake in how the Tongass is managed.
Marlee Goska, an attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, underscored another legal dimension of the ruling: it establishes that the law makes no distinction between old-growth and second-growth timber. “To the extent this administration and the Forest Service might be thinking about saying the TTRA mandates large old-growth timber sales to meet market demand, the court has already said that is incorrect,” she said.
The legal protection is real — and fragile
The ruling is a genuine win, and it carries lasting legal weight. But it does not permanently settle the future of Tongass old-growth forests.
The Trump administration has been developing a new forest management plan that could open more of the Tongass to logging, and that plan could supersede the current Obama-era protections. The plaintiffs have 30 days to appeal Judge Gleason’s decision. Kyle Griesinger of the Pacific Legal Foundation noted the case remains live even with a new plan in progress, since the existing plan governs the forest until it is formally replaced.
In other words, the legal battle over the Tongass is not over. What the March 2026 C.E. ruling does is close off one specific legal argument — the claim that industry demand creates a binding obligation on the Forest Service. That argument cannot now be revived in this case, and advocates say the precedent will matter if future administrators try to use similar logic to justify expanded logging.
A forest worth protecting
Old-growth temperate rainforests are among the rarest ecosystems on the planet. The Tongass holds roughly a third of all remaining old-growth temperate rainforest in the world. Trees in some stands are more than 800 years old. The carbon stored in their biomass and soils represents a climate asset that, once cleared, cannot be recovered on any human timescale.
The communities that depend on the forest — for salmon, for tourism, for culture, for clean water — have long argued that its economic value intact far exceeds its value as timber. The court’s ruling, however narrow its legal scope, reflects and reinforces that argument by confirming that the law does not compel the Forest Service to prioritize logging above all else.
Goska put it plainly: “We’ll fight tooth and nail to stop that from happening.” The ruling gives those fighting for the forest a stronger legal foundation to stand on.
Read more
For more on this story, see: Alaska Beacon
For more from Good News for Humankind, see:
- Ghana establishes a new marine protected area at Cape Three Points
- Alzheimer’s risk cut in half by drug in landmark prevention trial
- The Good News for Humankind archive on forest conservation
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