Idaho Wilderness Hearings

Statement:

RONMENTAL LEAGUE CHAPTER, IDAHO CONSERVATION LEAGUE Ms. Lyon. On a recent forest tour, a representative of the Forest Service told me that good forest management meant cheap lumber for America. It sounded good or at least it did until I realized that this is not the year 1783, and our continent does not have what then seemed like an endless supply of trees. I began to wonder if cheap lumber was a blessing. Cheap commodities tend to be used thoughtlessly. We consumers feel that if we can afford it, we deserve it, regardless of the consequences. Forested wilderness, like Long Canyon and Salmo Priest, represent such resources, ones which money can buy. Maybe if lumber were more expensive, people would realize the terrible sacrifice our country makes to supply it. But cheap lumber means we must provide a continuing, assured supply of trees even if it means moving machinery into once quiet, untounched valleys and cutting halfcentury or three-century old monuments to America's past. Long Canyon's trees represent lVfe to 2 years' worth of work and lumber in Boundary County or 1 Vz years' worth of security for the forest industry. But what then? Long Canyon, is roaded, cut, and replaced, no longer a part of nature s scheme, but part of man's management plan. If the timber industry needs cheap resources that it has to lay even a finger on the last natural drainage in our north Idaho Selkirk Mountains, then it's in trouble. And if it so badly needs to assurance of IV2 years' worth of wood for Boundary County mills, then management, not of the trees, but of the industry itself look like the answer. When water provided cheap hydropower in the Northwest, our rivers were dammed, and destroyed as natural, free-flowing resources. Our folly of cheap river power is repeating itself with 213 timber. It looks like the ethic and economics of conservation of forests is an idea whose time has come. My challenge to Senator McClure is to be a pioneer in forest conservation, to introduce legislation to give incentives to Americans who build smaller homes, who recycle paper and other wood products, and who reduce the amount of needless cardboard packaging. Let's educate Americans about the shrinking natural forest habitat.