Idaho Wilderness Hearings

Statement:

Mr. Lillis. Thank you, Senator McC!ure. I'm representing the southeast Idaho timber industry today and I stand on a working committee for U.S. Forest Service matters for those people. The output, as we see, from this wilderness area hearing is ex tremely incredible to the timber industry from the local area and we believe, also, to the American people who demand homes, farm, and business buildings, paper, clothing, fences, and many many other uses and needs. Projections identify a very strong and grow ing demand for the product from the forest industry. Each State which has U.S. Forest Service lands that are roadless has been carefully reviewed with the intent of identifying potential wilder ness characteristics for a long time. This has been a very expensive process. These lands have all contributed in the past to the level of multiple use, which includes our annual timber harvest. This is to say, Senator McClure, that in fact these lands have been in alloca tion and have been allocated in the past in determining the poten tial yield and annual cuts from the national forest. And we have depended on those, and the timber industry has developed its man ufacturing facilities, and the local employment basis is primarily predicated on the fact that those will continue. These roadless areas that we're talking about were identified a long time ago that some day they would become — put into demand ing State and would continue to contribute to that annual cut. We need to have this timber industry continue at the present level, and it can only do that if this roadless issue is resolved and it's re solved so that the commerical forest lands that are within it are maintained. The timber industry has spent a considerable amount of time and energies in recommending a reasonable wilderness bill. Its compromise suggests additional wilderness lands to bring the total to over 4.4 million acres. It also resolves the costly sufficiency questions and identifies for the Secretary of Agriculture the multi ple-use direction for the remaining areas. There has been many concessions made by the forest industry in order to support these recommendations. Some individuals would prefer that there be no increase in the wilderness system above the present levels, and that the already immense 3.8 million acres be reevaluate for some declassification; however, these concessions of the timber industry have been made in good faith. 575 The timber industry in southeast Idaho is partially represented on this panel. Their individual presentations will in fact demon strate not only the industry's importance to southeast Idaho, but also its very strong dependence on our national forest multiple-use outputs. Currently an atmosphere of instability exist with most re source user groups. Even our experienced employees currently feel uncertain about their future jobs. It must be remembered that the massive public response to RARE II overwhelmingly recommended that the resource base be protected, and that additions to the wil derness system be restricted to specific deserving areas. There was little support for large additions to the wilderness system.