The second of an award winning two-part show on Alaska's Tongass National Forest. Part Two looks at the contentious legacy of logging on the Tongass. (Part One looks at the natural history of the Tongass.) Suggested intro: The Tongass National Forest, America's largest, is a land of both biological wonder and stunning environmental damage. For nearly half a century, large scale logging ruled Southeast Alaska. Unprecedented federal subsidies and lax land-use laws allowed the industry to cut hundreds of thousands of acres of prime old growth forest. Yet after an FBI and EPA raid on one of its pulp mills, after antitrust convictions, after clean air and clean water convictions, after intense critisism by environmental organizations, the the industry's federal contracts were canceled. Today, the Tongass timber industry faces economic collapse. Amid the stumps and failed assumptions, Producer Guy Hand finds a people only beginning to understand what decades of clearcutting has done to the Tongass?a people wondering what to do next. The Tongass aired on Living On Earth and won first place for Broadcast Feature Reporting in 2002 from the Society of Environmental Journalists.

The second of an award winning two-part show on Alaska's Tongass National Forest. Part Two looks at the contentious legacy of logging on the Tongass. (Part One looks at the natural history of the Tongass.) Suggested intro: The Tongass National Forest, America's largest, is a land of both biological wonder and stunning environmental damage. For nearly half a century, large scale logging ruled Southeast Alaska. Unprecedented federal subsidies and lax land-use laws allowed the industry to cut hundreds of thousands of acres of prime old growth forest. Yet after an FBI and EPA raid on one of its pulp mills, after antitrust convictions, after clean air and clean water convictions, after intense critisism by environmental organizations, the the industry's federal contracts were canceled. Today, the Tongass timber industry faces economic collapse. Amid the stumps and failed assumptions, Producer Guy Hand finds a people only beginning to understand what decades of clearcutting has done to the Tongass?a people wondering what to do next. The Tongass aired on Living On Earth and won first place for Broadcast Feature Reporting in 2002 from the Society of Environmental Journalists.