Idaho Wilderness Hearings

Statement:

Mr. Proctor. I think I'm the person you're looking for. Lunch isn't far off here. Let me define what I call the regional approach. Our region, north Idaho, 50 miles east and west, and 150 miles north and south deserves some automony on certain issues. As we have our own river and lakes, our own roads, our own share of taxes, and our own multiple-use logged land, we should have our own share of wilderness. My north Idaho regiona has some 5,000,000 acres in it. It is in dire need of some true mutliple-use management. A modest figure of 76,000 acres set aside for wilderness seems only minimally appropriate as this represents one sixty-fifth of the total land or 1.8 percent of north Idaho. Five million acres of wilderness is what we white man started with 300 years ago, and we're using it up rapidly. So, I guess Long Canyon, Selkirk Crest, Salmo Priest, and Scotchman's Peak are the four areas to fulfill this modest proposal, equaling around 76,000 acres. I also brought for you a little of the Long Canyon area here. I'd like to have you see these pictures somehow. Photograph 1 represents a valley just south of Long Canyon; photograph 2 is Long Canyon; and photograph 3 is a valley which has a little bit of a burn in it, so it looks a little odd, but as you can see, I think that what might explain some of the excitement over the area, the place has been logged. You get up in an airplane, and you see continuous clearcuts. The one—pictures 1 and 2 are just about all clearcut, 20, 30, 40 percent of that valley. I think that might explain some of the excitement over the issue. It seems the logging industry might use a little management, maybe, rather than the forests. My last comment, I'd like to squeeze it in, would be about Salmo Priest. I've been up there extensively inside and out of Idaho and Washington, inside the proposed boundaries. I think no matter what Washington does, we ought to make ti wilderness anyway. Thank you.