Idaho Wilderness Hearings

Statement:

Mr. McColl. Senator McClure and Congressman Craig. 351 Senator, this week one of your colleagues from the Senate will, I believe, be floating down the Middle Fork of the Salmon River. I myself have had the fortune of traveling to the northernmost part of this continent and paddling about a 200-mile stretch of the Great George River that flows into the Unguava Bay area. Closer to home, I don't think I'll ever forget an afternoon that my two young boys and I spent walking up to the highest peak of the Trinities to the lookout up there where you could view all the way to Nevada and to Utah and to Oregon. It was not only a thrill for them; it was to me. What these three areas have in common together with, I think, all of the areas under the consideration of your committee is their wilderness aspect. And that aspect is, I believe, in the world at large today a rare commodity. The already designated wilderness area of the Salmon River is for our friends from the East, just as much as the northern part of Quebec are for me. And these roadless areas in Idaho can be for our future generations. I think it's folly for the committee to center its inquiry on the question of how many more wilderness acreas for Idaho. I really suggest that we are all in agreement on this situation. If there is a portion on that map that can be characterized as pure wilderness beauty, then it ought to deserve the protection of your legislation. To speak against it is really to speak against Nature itself. Those voices that would advocate a different use now, a use that will permanently change, alter or, in fact, destroy some of this wilderness are only temporary voices motivated by their economic masters, if you will. The few remaining acres that we have on a worldwide basis ought to be protected if we can do so. To yield to the tempta tions to present these acreas to economic prostitution is, I think, shortsighted. Thank you.