Idaho Wilderness Hearings

Statement:

Mr. Walker. Senator McClure, I have a quote here from a Senate hearing 316, February 1973, yourself. 'I started to go to Yellowstone National Park when I was a small boy. And I don't enjoy going there as a developed area anymore because there are too many people.' My name is Richard Walker. I'm a forester by training and occupation and have been for the past 17 years specialized in wilderness management planning, congressional wilderness studies, and wilderness cultural inventories. My wife and I live near Peck and manage a portion of our own land as a tree farm. So we're familiar with both ends of the spectrum; timber management on one end and wilderness on the other. We hear Idaho needs jobs. Well, I'm not an economist. But whether we like it or not, today we live in an economic and techno728 logical society. The questions of resource availability and allocation are increasingly being raised because economics is still the name of the game. It is comparative, then, that we equate natural resources with capital—I mean investment capital—the same thing that is inheritance from which we might draw interest. Proper management of this capital, our natural resources, insures a continuing legend to the long-term benefits. The other route is a short-term respite and eventual bankruptcy. To address the question of land allocation somewhat more objectively is what I think this hearing is all about. I hope that your proposed Idaho Forest Management Act will require that a joint study be prepared by the Forest Service or the forest industry with full participation by State and local interest that would identify a sustainable underline; that is, level of timber harvest and the resultant level of employment based on the poor proposal addressed in your questionnaire. Alternative proposals of land allocation can then be more objectively weighed. The alternative proposals and their effects should be presented in such a manner as to enable the family involved in logging to do some long-term personal planning. The local community and chamber of commerce with a little more certainty would know how long the mills will really be around. I mean, the community of Potlatch would certainly have welcomed this kind of information. You yourself, Senator, stated again in the same testimony in February 1973 that, quote: 'Congress ought to make the decision as to what shall or shall not be. And we need some factual information to guide us in making these decisions.' Senator, this proposed sustained yield study would identify for you and other members of our Congress, State government, local communities, and individuals who are directly dependent on these natural resources whether the management direction is but a short term or a long haul. This should not be the individual prerogative of Under Secretary of Agriculture John Krull who recently stated, quote: 'Sustaining a local or regional economy may mean encouraging production in areas that are not economical.'