Prince of Wales Island, Alaska

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For other islands named after the Prince of Wales, see Prince of Wales Island.

Image:Map of Alaska highlighting Prince of Wales Island.png

Prince of Wales Island is the third largest island of the USA, after Hawai‘i and Kodiak Island. It is one of the islands of the Alexander Archipelago in the Alaska Panhandle. The island is in the Prince of Wales - Outer Ketchikan Census Area.

The island is 135 miles (215 km) long, 45 miles (72 km) wide and has an area of 2,577 sq mi (6,675 km²), slightly larger than the State of Delaware.

The island is covered by the Tongass National Forest. It is the main homeland of the Kaigani Haida people, and the only home of the Prince of Wales Flying Squirrel Glaucomys sabrinus griseifrons.

In 1974, the Point Baker Association of Pt Baker and Port Protection on the island's north end, led by Alan Stein, sued the US Forest Service seeking to prevent the clearcut logging of the old growth forest consisting of about 400,000 acres on the north end.

The resulting lawsuit filed in Federal District Court as Ziske v Butz resulted in Judge Von der Heydt issuing an order in December of 1975 preventing clear cut logging on the 400,000 acres.

The decision threatened clearcut logging on the entire West Coast of the United States.

As a result, political pressure from both labor unions and saw mills forced the decision before Congress which latter, in 1976, passed the National Forest Management Act effectively nullifing the decision in Zieske.

Several factors contributed to the failure of Congress to preserve what the residents of Pt Baker had won in their lawsuit. One was the decision of the head lobbyist for the State of Alaska not to promote the Pt Baker issue. Guy Martin, Commissioner of Natural Resources, would not go to bat for preserving the 400,000 acres. Another was the failure of the Sierra Club, which was the lead environmental group involved in the legislation, NOT to go to bat for the residents.

Nor would Commissioner Martin or the Sierra Club push for buffer strips along salmon streams during deliberations on the legislation.

As a result most of the northern end of the island was clearcut. see [http://www.sdsc.edu/~mjb/pow.pdf]

Not until Stein v Barton in 1990 would another judge finally issue an injunction protecting the salmon streams from logging. That decision was made into law in 1990 when Congress passed the Tongass Timber Reform Act. The plaintiffs in Stein included Native subsistence users and commercial fishermen.

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