Idaho Wilderness Hearings

Statement:

Mr. Tibbott. Good morning, Senator. I'm going to speak here this morning and I'll try to summarize this as much as I can. My name is Evan Tibbott. I'm a resident of Idaho Falls and I'll just be testi fying as an individual. I guess my main motivation for concern right now is what ap pears to me to be a repudiation of the progress that has been made over the past two decades in this country toward establishing some kind of balance in our management of natural resources. I'm here today principally to testify in favor of the designation of Gams Mountain and Palisades roadless area as wilderness. My principal interest and familiarities with these two areas spans a period of approximateley 16 years, as the result of day hikes; I've also taken cross-country skiing excursions recently in the last 2 years, ex tended tours in the Garns Mountain area in the winter. Together with friends I have also canoed and rafted the entire reach of the South Fork from near Swan Valley to Heise and beyond. I believe by reason of these experiences, as well as my general knowledge of the wildlife and natural character of the areas, I believe that they are suitable and should be included as wilderness. These two areas can be reached easily for day hikes by most resi dents of the Upper Snake River Valley. At the present time the designated wilderness, about 3.8 million acres, in this State is con centrated largely in the central portion. There are many people, I'm sure, that would enjoy this kind of activity and experience who will find it difficult timewise, at least, to get into these areas. This is another reason why I favor these two areas that are close by a major population center of this State, for wilderness. I might mention where it comes to wildlife, the region includes mule deer, elk, moose, black bear, beaver, otter, pika, coyote, moun tain goats, bald and golden eagles. And on my own trips along the Snake River, I've seen ospreys, night herons, and various species of water fowl. I consider it an ecological unit in itself. Timber values are generally low in the Garns Mountain area, except in the northern part of the region. The terrain is, for the most part, steep and difficult to penetrate with roads. The taxpayer subsidy to the timber industry, through costly road construction and road credits, becomes an extremely important issue when viewed in the context of resource tradeoffs such as wilderness op portunities forgone and loss of fish and wildlife habitat. And I ask, why is the Forest Service and apparently the adminis tration placing so much importance on timber sales nationwide 627 when there are approximately 40 billion, not million, but billion board feet of backlog sold of uncut timber, compared approximately to 1 billion board feet in Idaho? This 40 billion applies to most of the national forests. I'd like to cite a study by the Natural Resources Defense Council, entitled, 'Giving Away the National Forests,' which was made for the period years 1974 to 1978. The Caribou, Challis, Salmon, Saw tooth, and Targhee National Forests consistently lost money on timber sales. The Caribou Forest returned only 24 cents to the Treasury for each dollar spent on timber sales. This amounted to a total loss of $1,565,700 for the 5-year period.