It’s been nearly three decades since the U.S. Forest Service released their first management plan for the Tongass National Forest.
“I call it the ‘Field of Dreams,’ because we were doing a lot of ‘build it and they will come,’” he said. “So we were investing a lot of money in building trails and cabins and all sorts of recreation infrastructure for a tourism and recreation industry that was yet to actually arrive.” “In 1997, climate change wasn’t even a thought in the forest plan – it wasn’t even really contemplated,” he said. “And here we are today where it’s really frontline, headline news and we have a forest plan currently that doesn’t really prepare ourselves for it.”