Idaho Wilderness Hearings

Statement:

Mr. Cheyney. Good afternoon. My name is Winston Cheyney. I'm from here in Boise. I moved to Idaho a number of years ago because Idaho offered a quality of life which was unique in our Nation. The slow pace of life combined with clear, clean skies, majestic mountains and spar kling waters are truly something special for me, and I think for ev eryone else in this room. These values justify for me an extraordi nary effort to protect the Idaho that I have come to know and love. The many thousands of acres of wilderness in our State are one of the special values that brought me here. I have been able to ex plore a portion of the wilderness, but the constraints of time im posed by earning a living have left me with a list of further areas to explore. I sincerely hope that these areas are still wild and pris tine when I am finally able to complete their exploration. In my written testimony I have addressed a number of reasons for wilderness classification, and I would like to discuss just one of them now in the interest of redundancy. And that's an economical ly conservative generation. A distressingly large number of deficit timber sales occur in our national forests here in Idaho. I don't feel that it's responsible economic or resource management to sell our Nation's timber when the costs of development exceed the value of that timber. This is particularly hard to understand when the result is the deterioration of other economically valuable resources. Studies by the Natural Resources Defense Council have shown that in many of Idaho's national forests for every dollar spent on timber sales there is only a 24 to 26 cent return. The timber indus try would have us believe that we cannot afford to place these lands in wilderness protection. With such a dismal record, I believe that we cannot afford not to. Our President has wisely set the goal of reducing the Federal budget deficit and eliminating waste in our Government. National forest timber sales in Idaho would be a darned good place to start. It's bad enough to lose our movement of heritage, our soil and water quality, and our wildlife resources, but not even our coverage of doing so is insulting. I support the endangered Idaho wilderness core proposal. The lands in this proposal are essential for a good wilderness system in Idaho. Thank you very much.