Sealaska will get out of logging business

JUNEAU (AP) - Sealaska Corp. has announced plans to get out of the logging business after more than 40 years.

The Juneau-based Alaska Native corporation announced the change Jan. 11 in a sign of Southeast Alaska’s economic transition away from logging, CoastAlaska public radio reported.

The transition is not expected to affect future profits or dividends, but is part of a long-term strategy to generate ``sustainable value’’ for shareholders, the corporation said.

Sealaska CEO Anthony Mallott said in a statement that logging created value for the corporation’s shareholders. “But we’ve now built an organization that can thrive well into the future, and that means engaging in activities with more enduring benefits for our communities,” Mallott said.

The corporation was created by the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act and has about 22,000 shareholders, most living in or holding historic ties to Southeast Alaska.

Sealaska has been a major player in the region’s timber economy with more than 562 square miles in its portfolio. In 2015, the corporation began logging lands received through a transfer approved by Congress of more than 109 square miles of Tongass National Forest, largely around Prince of Wales Island.

Environmentalists opposed to logging in old-growth forests welcomed the company’s decision.

Meredith Trainor, executive director of the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council, lauded Mallott and board Chair Joe Nelson for “visionary leadership of moving Sealaska away from logging and toward other ways of creating benefit for their people.”