Idaho Wilderness Hearings

Statement:

RESOURCES COMMITTEE, IDAHO WILDLIFE FEDERATION Mr. Meiners. Mr. McClure, I'm Bill Meiners, Idaho Wildlife Fed eration, Meridian, Idaho. I'm here today to submit testimony on behalf of the federation and myself and also to submit written tes timony of my wife and ask that it be made part of the record. The Idaho Wildlife Federation advocates and actively seeks the establishment within the National Wilderness Preservation System all lands identified for inclusion and management as wilderness within the scope and intent of the Wilderness Act. IWF likewise advocates and insists upon the comprehensive study of all such lands having those qualities and attributes as to render them candidates for inclusion within the Wilderness Preser vation System with determination made as to their designation prior to any activity that would impair or destroy such inherent qualities or attributes. Thus we come to the some 6V2 million acres of Idaho's wilderness areas and ask: Which, if any, of these roadless areas should be clas sified wilderness? The guiding principle in answer to this question must be: All such roadless areas whose basic resources of soil and water togeth er with their dependent life forms of fish, game, and nongame wild life, plants, or other intrinsic and scenic values are best protected and managed as wilderness. Timber mining of submarginal lands, deficit timber sales, or other shortsighted exploitation of inherent resources must be rec ognized and disposed in the public's interest. rWF opposes hard release language in any legislative proposal. We simply do not know all the answers at this time. Soft release is more appropriate and gives opportunity for fur ther study and classification at some future date. We are also opposed to the purist concept as regards manage ment of wilderness areas and would welcome the opportunity in working on legislative language to overcome this problem. Thank you for this opportunity to make comment. I trust you will consider well the matter of commercial forest lands, submar ginal forest lands, and deficit timber sales as identified and dis cussed in my written comments, water and watershed values, fish and wildlife habitat and values, and the host of other values that accrue to the public in drafting your proposed Idaho wilderness bill. These lands are precious to this and future generations. They demand our best efforts for all concerned.