Idaho Wilderness Hearings

Statement:

FISH AND GAME LEAGUE Mr. Peterson. Thank you, Senator. My name is Wayne E. Peter son, Ada County Fish and Game League. We support without reservation Idaho Department of Fish and Game's proposal to add some 560,000 acres to the wilderness area. Furthermore, we believe that as long as the Forest Service contin ues present mismanagement imposed on them by timbermen, miners, cattlemen, and other self-serving interests through their Washington connections, the only way to protect our forests and public lands is to include them in wilderness areas. Therefore, we support conversion to wilderness all lands being considered at this time. The Forest Service has fulfilled a mandate providing timber ma terial to citizens. But they have failed in many instances to secure or protect watersheds. Gentlemen, it's not getting better. It's getting worse. The ongoing controversy over constructing logging roads in Kelly Creek drainage and into the Mallard Larkin area verifies this statement. Destruction of these two fine fish and game resource areas is nothing short of an insult to the citizens of the State of Idaho and the entire United States. We question the economics of road construction in our forests. We doubt that benefits measure up to costs in marginal and submarginal timber production lands. Without the subsidy provided by taxpayers in building these roads, we doubt that they would be built and that timber harvest from these lands would be foregone. This is in addition to the subsidy of turning our highways over to logging trucks. We have heard the argument that once these lands are in wilder ness, they will be locked there forever. Nonsense. What Congress does, they can undo. And if some time in the future — surely not now — resources within wilderness areas need to be developed, they can be under what we hope will be improved management prac tices. Thank you.