About the TTC

Mission

The mission of The Tongass Collaborative is to promote healthy forests, healthy habitats and healthy communities across the forested landscape of Southeast Alaska.

What we do

The Tongass Collaborative serves as a representative forum that builds understanding and concurrence about complex forest management issues; resolves conflicts where possible; serves as a clearing house and synthesizer of pertinent information; develops recommendations for policies and approaches that are broadly supported, science based, implementable, and culturally appropriate; and builds capacity, leverages resources, fosters collaboration and creates partnerships to turn recommendations into on-the-ground results – e.g., good jobs; restored ecosystems; predictable timber supply; improvements to recreational amenities; better access to subsistence resources, etc..

History

The Tongass Collaborative is descended from the Tongass Advisory Committee (TAC), a Federal Advisory Committee created in 2014 by the Secretary of Agriculture to inform the Tongass National Forest’s transition from reliance on old-growth timber to more sustainable, primarily young-growth based management. The TAC achieved consensus on a package of recommendations for how to accomplish the transition. Those recommendation became the basis of the 2016 Tongass Forest Plan Amendment.

Prior to the TAC, the region was beset by extreme polarization and animosity between factions whose interests in forest management diverged, and who rarely if ever engaged in constructive dialogue. The TAC was the beginning of a paradigm shift from vitriol to one of civil discourse and joint problem solving. After the FACA fulfilled its charter and was dissolved, most of its members decided to stay together as the Tongass Transition Collaborative (TTC), initially focused on providing input to the USFS about implementing the Plan Amendment.  Over time the TTC expanded its reach beyond just the Tongass National Forest to the entire forested landscape of the region across multiple ownerships.