Idaho Wilderness Hearings

Statement:

Dr. Chetwood. Thank you. We have 3 minutes? A multiple-use concept is great in theory; and if stringently managed, it should work. However, part of the problem is that multiple use in its present concept, as I see it, has been logging. And that's first. And then generally after that, it's so poorly regulated that we end up with instead of being multiple use, we end up with subtracted use. And that is the real problem that I can see that we have not taken care of our regulations well enough that we can go in there, extract the marketable timber without damaging the other uses afterward. You can't plant trees in Idaho, for example, and expect them to grow like they do in Louisiana or on the coast. It just doesn't—they don't grow that way. So if we're going to designate our roadless areas as multiple use, then I would urge very strong regulations that would insure that our environmental area and environmental 751 impact is very minimum. We can do multiple use. We can do wilderness. Our wilderness areas need some working over, too, because they end up with situations where there's so many access trails that are not maintained. So we have some problems with their environmental situation in wilderness. We have some problems with environmental situations in multiple use. But I think that we have—we're going to have those things; we do have to preserve the fact that we can use them, get the most out of them without ruining them. I think we must preserve our space and natural streams and environment. There's no economic reward that will replace the value of our natural environment. We cannot continue to lay waste to millions of acres of public lands under the pretense that it is good economy. Most, if not all, of the public timber sales end up as deficit sales. And although the county gets the taxes on the gross sale, the final fact is that it is a public subsidy that the next generation will pay even more than dollars. The renewable resource that they talk about is 60 years away in the best areas and never in the worst. We should take another look at the nonexploitive economic value of Idaho's roadless public lands and wilderness. It brings millions of dollars into our State annually, and we don't have to cut a tree or dig a hole to get it. If the decision were mine to make, as a reasonable alternative to walking every mile, I would listen to those who have walked those miles and to those who have no overriding economic interests. It is my recommendation that you give a great deal of consideration to the proposals of the Idaho Fish and Game Department.