Idaho Wilderness Hearings

Statement:

IDAHO CONSERVATION LEAGUE Mr. Johnson. Thank you, Senator. My name is William Johnson. I reside here in Lewiston and represent the Clearwater chapter of the Idaho Conservation League, a group of local citizens living most of us here in the valley. Because we do live here, we are particularly sensitive to the stability of the timber industry. Though I don't work at Potlatch, in a sense my job nonetheless depends on that stability. By the same token, we do not feel that the designation of significant lands in the Clearwater National Forest as wilderness—significant acrease as wilderness is necessarily a threat to the stability of the timber industry. I would reiterate what has just been said about economic demand as opposed to supply being perhaps the primary problem right now for that industry. With 12 percent considered right now a low mortgage by most home buyers and the average home in the United States costing something like $96,000, it's hard to see how the demand for saw logs is ever going to be what it was in the sixties or the seventies. I would urge the committee to consider theoretical and philosophical considerations as well as practical and economic ones. Works such as Roderick Nash's 'Wilderness in the American Mind’ just seems to me are just as significant as road cost benefit studies. Finally, timber is theoretically a replenishable resource. I would like to believe that it always will be. But if I might be allowed perhaps an off-beat analogy, so are whales considered a replenishable resource. If you look at what the whaling industry has been up to over the last hundred years, you discover that several species have already been eliminated and several more are now threatened with extinction. I think one perhaps unusual argument for wilderness is that it will help the timber industry protect itself from its self and not eliminate itself. Significant wilderness will make industry more prudent in taking the long-term—not a short-term—but a longterm look at Idaho's natural resources. Finally, I would like you very much to see the issues resolved. But I would also hope that wilderness review would be—would remain an option for future generations. Thank you very much.