"ANCHORAGE, Alaska - A coalition of Alaska Native tribes and environmentalists filed suit on Wednesday challenging a new Trump administration policy that opens vast swaths of the largest U.S. national forest to logging, mining and other commercial development.
The lawsuit, joined by tourism and fishing organizations, seeks to reinstate prohibitions on road-building through previously protected areas in the Tongass National Forest of southeastern Alaska, the world’s largest temperate rain forest.
The Clinton-era rule, effectively banning timber harvests and mineral extraction in undeveloped areas of national forests across the country, was lifted for the Tongass in October, part of President Donald Trump’s aim of easing various environmental regulations opposed by industry."
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