Idaho Wilderness Hearings

Statement:

Mr. Kendra. I'm a graduate student at Washington State University and the department of plant pathology. And I'm not sure if I'm speaking for everybody in the department, but I'm speaking for myself. I'm originally from Pennsylvania. And I chose to come to Washington State University for two reasons. And they're on equal plateaus as far as importance. One was reputation of the department that I'm in. And the second was the closeness to the wilderness in Idaho. And today we've heard testimony on both sides pro and antiwilderness. And I've learned a lot from this. But there's one fact that's just been addressed. And it was the woman who spoke before me. We don't know enough about it yet. One of the— looking at your pretty map with pretty colors and everything representing all the land, we don't understand enough about the species diversity to really make a smart judgment yet. I think we know a lot about individual species of trees we're going to harvest. We know a lot about the different types of fish that are in there. But we don't understand how they interrelate with each other. And until we really get a full grasp of that picture. I don't think we can make a very, very intelligent decision. And personally, I think it all should be wilderness. Because until we understand it, we shouldn't do anything to it. But realizing that the fact that a lot of people's jobs are on the line here, I think that there are certain areas that should be opened up. I think testimony by the expert people who spoke today—and I mean everybody—I think you can weigh the choice one way or the other which area should be opened up to timber. But in the long run, you know, the fate of everything rests on us. Either we screw it up or leave it alone. And 90 years is an awful long time for a set of trees to grow back when they can grow back in 15 years down in the Southeast. And I think we should look more toward there for the timber industry than Idaho when we already have wilderness. Thank you.