“Pressure to meet timber sales goals contributed to mismanaged contracts on Alaska’s Tongass National Forest and a $700,000 refund to a timber sale purchaser, a Forest Service audit found.
The environmental groups Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) and the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council (SEACC) said the report they obtained reaffirms their complaints about the timber program in the nearly 17-million-acre Tongass, the country’s biggest national forest and a rare intact temperate rainforest with remaining stands of old-growth trees.”