Alaska proposes timber harvest in all Haines State Forest areas

Alaska's Division of Forestry wants to open the entire Haines State Forest to possible timber harvest — and one of the main reasons they cited was to make it easier to leave trees standing.

The proposal would allow timber sales across all land classifications in the 286,000-acre forest in the Chilkat Valley, including areas now reserved for wildlife habitat and public recreation.

The current 2002 management plan limits commercial logging to lands classified for forest production. Division staff stress that the classifications themselves wouldn't change, and that any sale would still require a "best interest" finding consistent with each area's intended use.

The driver is carbon. Staff say the change is needed to enable carbon-offset projects, which can pay forest owners for the carbon their trees store. But offset registries generally require proof that harvestable timber genuinely could have been cut. To earn credit for not logging, in other words, the state first has to establish that logging is allowed.

That logic hasn't won over some residents. At a public meeting, one community member said the Division had offered no real justification "for why all your policy… in which all lands become part of the timber base." Staff acknowledged a scoping survey found 78 percent opposition, but said the sample was too small to count. "The sample size for those percentages… is 12 individuals," planning staff said. "Twelve individuals is not representative of the community at large."

The Division leans on the forest's founding statute, which establishes Haines for "the utilization, perpetuation, conservation and production" of its resources "through multiple use management." Staff also say the pressure runs both ways. "We have an equal and opposite force of feedback asking for something more," planning staff said. "Our role is to find a balance where the most possible use is made available to the Alaskan public."

The stakes are local. The Chilkat Valley is known for its salmon runs and one of the world's largest gatherings of bald eagles, and the forest borders Klukwan, the Tlingit village at the head of the valley.

The Division expects to release a public review draft in winter 2026-27, with at least 30 days for comment before a final recommendation goes to the DNR Commissioner. A closing public meeting is scheduled for Klukwan, at the Alaska Native Sisterhood Hall.