Republicans want to open pristine Alaska wilderness to logging. This is a tragedy | Kim Heacox

The Tongass forest sequesters 3m tons of C02 annually, the equivalent of removing 650,000 gas-burning cars off the roads every year

Forests are the lungs of the Earth.

Around the world, every minute of every day, trees perform magic. They inhale vast amounts of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, and exhale oxygen, the stuff of life. They keep things in balance. And no single forest does this better – contains more living plant life per area, or stores more carbon – than the 17m-acre Tongass national forest in coastal Alaska.

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The wholesale destruction of our imperiled planet’s most life-sustaining forests has to stop

Kim Heacox is the author of books including The Only Kayak, a memoir, and Jimmy Bluefeather, the only novel to ever win the National Outdoor Book Award. He lives in Alaska, on the edge of the Tongass