Do you want to do your part to help protect the Tongass and its communities? Check out the most recent Action Alerts at the bottom of the page for immediate steps you can take. Also consider following the links to learn about how you can volunteer, get up to date email alerts, and donate to help SCS achieve out mission of protecting the natural environment of the Tongass while supporting the development of sustainable communities in Southeast Alaska.
Volunteer
For much of its history, the Sitka Conservation Society was entirely a volunteer organization, and volunteers are still essential to the work we do. SCS relies on volunteers throughout the year for everything from solitude monitoring in the Wilderness to cleaning up after our annual wild foods potluck to writing letters to members of Congress.
Sign up for Action Alerts
You can also stay informed through SCS’s email updates, Action Alerts, and our newsletter, Tracks, which is published 3 times a year to keep our members up to date on Tongass issues and new developments at SCS.
Donate
A Sitka Conservation Society membership can be as little as $30 a year. However, donations beyond the basic level provide substantial support to SCS programing every year. If you are passionate about keeping the Tongass wild, appreciate the work SCS does, and have the resources to make a larger contribution, we hope you will consider a donation beyond the basic membership level.
View our most current Action Alerts below:
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Fish to Schools to be Honored at Benefit Dinner on Wednesday 4/25
When people from the lower 48 think of Alaska, images of the Deadliest Catch, the debate around drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the open tundra of the north often come to mind. But, there is a lot more to Alaska. Despite the long winters and short summers Alaska is joining the nation’s [...]
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Fishermen Travel to Washington, DC to Advocate for Tongass Management that Prioritizes Wild Alaska Salmon
Salmon are the lifeblood of Sitka’s economy, culture, and way-of-life and are a keystone species in the temperate rainforest ecosystems of the Tongass. Management of the Tongass has long focused on timber and historic logging practices were done in ways that severely damaged salmon runs. The Forest Service has since learned that stream beds shouldn’t [...]
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Sealaska Land Privatization Bill
Background: The Alaska Congressional Delegation has introduced bills in the House and Senate that would take tens of thousands of acres of prime Tongass lands and privatize them by passing them over to the Sealaska Corporation. The Sitka Conservation Society opposes this legislation and sees it as a threat to the Tongass and to the [...]
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Sitka’s Hydroelectricity Maxed Out
In 2011, Sitka’s hydroelectric capacity was at the lowest in the last 30 years. The combination of a lower supply due to less rain and a high demand for electric heating forced the City and Borough of Sitka to use hundreds of thousands of gallons for diesel fuel last year alone to supplement the town’s [...]
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Take Action: Ask Gov. Parnell to Appoint a Worthy Head of ADF&G
Earlier this month, the head of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s Wildlife Conservation Division, Corey Rossi, resigned after being charged with 12 violations related to illegal bear hunting. Rossi was controversial and divisive in his position in the agency, marring ADF&G’s respectability as a science-based organization. Read the 2-part article on the situation [...]
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Action Alert: Make Salmon a Priority UPDATED
Make Management and Protection of Wild Alaska Salmon a Priority in the Tongass National Forest! Background: 5 species of Pacific Salmon spawn in the Tongass National Forest. For thousands of years, those salmon have played a key role for the peoples and cultures that make their home on the Tongass. Today, the connections and traditions [...]
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Action Alert: Make Wild Alaska Salmon a Priority!
Make Management and Protection of Wild Alaska Salmon a Priority in the Tongass National Forest! Background: 5 species of Pacific Salmon spawn in the Tongass National Forest. For thousands of years, those salmon have played a key role for the peoples and cultures that make their home on the Tongass. Today, the connections and traditions [...]
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Fishermen at the Capital
The Sitka Conservation Society is working hard during this Forest Service budget preparing season to advocate for a shift of Tongass funding from a disproportionate logging program to a focus that manages our largest National Forest for Salmon. It is high time that we made this shift because salmon are the lifeblood of our region [...]
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Reboubt Falls Land Transfer
Sealaska is moving forward with plans to take ownership of Redoubt Falls. Stakes have been placed, and opportunities for public comment on this divisive plan are limited. Although Sealaska has claimed in the past that the public will continue to have access to the most important subsistence sockeye stream close to Sitka, there doesn’t seem [...]
