Idaho Wilderness Hearings

Statement:

Mrs. Lamet. Thank you, Senator. Thank you Senator McClure and Senator Symms. I'm glad to be here today to testify for wilder have been a housewife and have been raising small chil dren, so really have been following this issue for 12 years and wish didn't have to come here to plead for wilderness again. the treasure of our Nation and its resources have Wilderness helped build this country. Instead today we should be recognizing in the na the small amount of true wilderness left and putting resource that tional treasury as our most renewable resource, many people have testified as being multiple uses. The Idaho Almanac — I'm going to skip because I've written much too much to say. The Idaho Almanac lists presently 15.2 mil lion acres as commecial, and it's listed as commercial forestlands. Presently Idaho has 3.8 acres of wilderness and much of that land composed of steeply sloped hills and mountains having a it is I I I I ness. is legislation 32-426 O— 84 33 506 highly erodible soil types. Much of the land that is being proposed in southern Idaho is the same, high elevations, sparce timbered, steep slopes, low rainfall, highly eroding soils. Clearly those are not the dense, fast growing, fast returning forests of Oregon and Wash ington that make harvest so profitable. I would support a proposal, when you write your legislation, that half of the remaining roadless areas be protected under wilderness status. I would ask that of that remaining acreage that is not put under any protection