The Forest Service greenlighted a sweeping 15-year logging scheme over a 1.8-million-acre project area across Prince of Wales and surrounding islands in America’s largest and wildest national forest.

Aimed at cracking down on illegal logging imports, the laws, which come into effect next month, also enable the department to use new timber testing technologies to verify species and origin claims.

“Carbon emissions from logging are 10 times higher than the combined emissions from wildfire and tree mortality from native bark beetles. Frank conversations about the Forest Service’s mandate to ...