Tongass Defenders Blast the Trump Administration’s Rollback of Roadless Rule Protections on America’s Largest Forest

Earth Justice

June 23rd, 2025

JUNEAU, AK (ÁAKʼW ḴWÁAN TERRITORY) —

The U.S. Department of Agriculture today announced plans to strip Roadless Rule protections nationwide, including from Alaska’s Tongass National Forest. The move is particularly significant for the Tongass National Forest, where eliminating the Roadless Rule would remove critical safeguards against industrial logging and damaging roadbuilding from over 9 million undeveloped acres within the 17-million-acre forest.

Eliminating the Roadless Rule from the Tongass would remove protections for about half the forest and add almost 190,000 acres to an inventory of lands “suitable” for timber production — areas of the forest most at risk of being logged. This is triple the acreage the Forest Service estimated would be logged under the forest plan in 25 years. Many of these lands are in parts of the forest where previous clear-cut logging decimated vast swaths of older trees, making the remaining intact stands of mature and old-growth trees particularly valuable as fish, bird, and wildlife habitat, and for Indigenous communities and others who rely on the forest for their livelihood, wellbeing, and spiritual and cultural ways of life.

Tribal leaders, recreational small-business owners, commercial fishing operators and conservationists have fought for decades to ensure Roadless Rule protections remain in place for the Tongass. The coalition vows to continue to defend the forest against this latest attempt to roll back protections.

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Keeping a Labor Force in the Pipline

National Fishermen

June 16th, 2025

By Paul Molyneaux

Across the U.S. coasts, various organizations offer training programs and apprenticeships designed to help young people secure jobs in the commercial fishing industry.

These have largely operated independently and out of touch with each other, but the launch of the National Future Fishermen’s Coalition (NFFC) aims to remedy that disconnect by bringing the disparate programs to one website.  

“At NFFC, we’re all about collaboration,” says the organization’s coordinator, Maité Duquela. “That starts on the docks and stretches across the country.” 

The NFFC has outlined its goals: Empowering young fishermen, strengthening industry networks, combating false narratives, celebrating the legacy of fishing, and championing domestic seafood.  Now it has to determine how to achieve them.  

“We have created this space in order to work with grassroots fishing organizations, industry partners, and coastal communities to tackle the generational and workforce challenges facing commercial fishing today,” says Duquela. “This will be materialized with a virtual interactive platform, an employee-employer hub, a virtual resource hub, and a series of tailored communication campaigns and events.” 

As Duquela describes it, empowering young fishermen means helping them find the training they need in their region. “We partner with the Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association, the Maine Commercial Fishermen’s Association, the Commercial Fisheries Center of Rhode Island, the Gulf of America Reef Fishermen’s Association, and others,” she says. “These organizations are actively leading efforts in mentorship, policy education, safety training, and hands-on skills development. These programs give young and new fishermen a real shot at building a stable and successful future on the water.” 

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LAWMAKERS CLASH OVER NOAA FISHERIES RULES

Politico Pro

June 5th, 2025

By Daniel Cusick

Republicans are seeking to align their agenda with President Donald Trump's order calling for reforms to seafood regulation. Democrats are bewildered.

House lawmakers struggled Wednesday to reconcile President Donald Trump’s recent executive order to bolster the U.S. fishing industry while simultaneously gutting the nation’s fisheries agency.

A hearing before the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water, Wildlife and Fisheries offered seesawing interpretations between Republicans and Democrats over how NOAA should regulate the fishing industry.

Republican lawmakers, led by Rep. Harriet Hageman of Wyoming, focused on what critics characterize as overregulation of the fishing industry based on flawed science.

“Fishing in the United States has become quite complicated, with our smaller, independent fishermen facing the greatest challenges,” Hageman said in opening remarks.

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Trump cuts threaten safety training for America’s most dangerous jobs

Reuters

June 1st, 2025

By Leah Douglas

NEWBURYPORT, Massachusetts - By the time Robbie Roberge spotted the fire consuming his boat's galley last August, he knew he had just minutes to evacuate his beloved Three Girls fishing vessel, named for his daughters.

As the flames spread up the boat's walls, he helped his crew into safety suits, deployed a life raft and made a mayday call to alert nearby mariners and the U.S. Coast Guard that he was abandoning ship more than 100 miles offshore.

Roberge, a commercial fisherman from South Portland, Maine, learned how to handle such an emergency just three months earlier at a workshop held by Fishing Partnership Support Services, a nonprofit that has trained thousands of East Coast fishermen in safety practices.

On May 20, Roberge cut a fishing trip short to bring the six-man crew from his remaining boat, the Maria JoAnn, to another FPSS training in Newburyport, Massachusetts.

"I have years of experience, but not dealing with emergencies," said Roberge, whose handling of the fire led to a successful rescue with no injuries. "I make it a point to be here."

Such safety trainings - aimed at fishermen, loggers, farmers and other workers in America's most dangerous jobs - could be scaled back or wound down entirely as soon as July, according to Reuters interviews with a dozen health and safety experts and organizations, as a result of President Donald Trump's drive to slash the size and cost of the federal government.

Those cuts have fallen heavily on the federal government's National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services that is a key funder of workplace safety training and research.

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