Idaho Wilderness Hearings

Statement:

Ms. Kelly. Thank you, Senator McClure. I would like to submit as my testimony a letter I wrote to the editor of the Idaho Statesman because it addresses a semantic issue that I have heard a few times in the last hour. The letter appeared July 30, 1983. It reads: Dear Editor, I know that newspaper headlines are written to fill a certain space, so that sometimes it's hard to accurately reflect a story with a headline. There was a headline in the July 26 Statesman that was a case in point. It said, and I quote, conservationists want 2 million more wilds acres. Conserva tionists don't want more wildland. The wildland is already there, and we just want to keep some of it that way. If conservationists want 2 million acres kept wild, that means they — we — are willing to see about 4 million acres that is wild now not be protected. There is about 6.5 million acres of wildlife on Idaho's national forests which has no protection insuring it will stay wild. I don't think it's too much to ask to see about one-third of that to be protected to stay just the way it is. So please remember, when you hear that someone wants more wilderness, that really means they want to protect some part of 353 land that is already wild. The real question is, how much left wild land will Idaho have in 10 years. I think 2 million acres is probably too little to protect, because that really means we're going to build about two-thirds. The point is, you cannot create wilderness; you can destroy it, or you can protect it. Thank you very much.