Idaho Wilderness Hearings

Statement:

Mr. Beck. Senator McClure and members of the committee, I'm Richard Beck from Bonners Ferry, Idaho. And I'm here to speak for myself, my family, and for many of the youth of your community. I've been a scout leader for 3 years and a volunteer coach for 3 years. I think since our economy has somewhat weakened our youth programs, our scouting program, especially, has strengthened a great deal. I think part of that reason our scouting programs and our youth programs have strengthened is people like you and I that have had the foresight to preserve our natural resources for our youth. In our Webelo program, for instance, we work on 15 badges. One badge is the naturalist, which is the study of birds and plants and insects; such as, the pileated woodpecker and fisher and a marten along with many other plants and animals that are found mainly in old growth forests. And in Boy Scouts, they work on many more badges; such as, birds, camping, edible wild plants, hiking, trees, backpacking, and many more. With its unique old growth forest, Long Canyon can be utilized to earn any or all of these badges. Our youth can use Long Canyon to compare with areas that have been logged. Here we can study the difference between both kinds of areas. And our Scouts have used Long Canyon to have fun. They've seen things they can't see anywhere else and to earn their badges. I think nature teaches us order and simplicity. And we can learn a lot of things from nature. It's our own ignorance that causes tragedies that we have. Please don't let our youth suffer from our own ignorance. We can stop most of these tragedies, I think, with knowledge. Knowledge that we can obtain by keeping Long Canyon as it is. You know, Senator McClure, I had a Scout come up to me and ask me 'Why should we—why should you be taking all the trees from Long Canyon when there are so many other trees around here?' I had no answer. I hope you do. Thank you.