duction of metals necessary to national defense and necessary to a strong economy. This is no time for esoteric dilettantism; we must progress economically, or perish. The national domain should be available to all the people, not just to a privileged few who, through extraordinary health or wealth, can take advantage of it. Very truly yours, E. K. BAINES, President. STATEMENT OF NORTH IDAHO FORESTRY ASSOCIATION, GEORGE W. BEARDMORE, SECRETARY This statement is presented on behalf of the North Idaho Forestry Association, and is in opposition to wilderness system legislation. We request it be made a part of the record of this hearing. The North Idaho Forestry Association is a conservation group in northern Idaho. It has actively supported and worked for sound natural resource development and use since its organization on October 10, 1908. Our association presented a detailed statement on November 12, 1958, in opposition to the then, S. 4028, at a hearing of the Senate Committee on Wilderness Legislation in Salt Lake City, Utah. Our statement filed at that hearing contains the detailed reasons for our opposition to wilderness legislation. We do not desire to take up valuable time and space to detail our position at this hearing. We feel a summary is adequate. Our opposition to wilderness legislation and our position briefly, is as follows: 1. Our association is in accord with the policy of preserving a reasonable amount of wilderness area consistent with the actual need for such areas. We feel that S. 174, establishing a wilderness system and blanketing some 7 million acres of national forest primitive area into that system would have a damaging effect on the intelligent management of natural resources within, and adjacent to, the areas classified as wilderness. This would have long-range detrimental effects upon the economic well-being of our Western States in general, and our local communities in particular. 2. Surveys by the U.S. Forest Service and other agencies demonstrate that intelligent farsighted management of commercial forest land is essential to supply the future wood and fiber requirements of our Nation. Many hundreds of thousands of acres of commercial forest lands are now within the boundaries of present primitive areas, notably the Selway-Bitterroot primitive area in northern Idaho and western Montana. That area is composed of approximately 1,875,000 acres of which approximately 50 percent is commercial forest area containing a present stand of merchantable saw timber volume of 7 billion board feet. If the forest resource economy of northern Idaho is to be maintained, it is necessary that all commercial forest stands be available to sustain present operations. 3. We are opposed to single use dedication of lands to be administered by a group biased or directed by legislative fiat designed to maintain that dedication. Federal lands within the jurisdiction of the U.S. Forest Service are now being administered on the principle of multiple use with the highest beneficial use receiving preference. We believe this to be in the best interest of all the people. 4. This is not recreation legislation. It would restrict the availability of these primitive and wilderness areas to a small group of devout wilderness worshippers who have the money, time, and desire to prowl the wilderness. The family recreationalist of modest means desires access by motor conveyance. 5. A wilderness preservation system is unnecessary to protect present wilderness areas. Both the Forest Service and the National Park Service have enviable records in the management of the lands within their jurisdicition, including the preservation of wilderness, primitive, and wild land areas. To place restrictive legislation on these administrative agencies is a disservice to the American public and an expression of lack of confidence in these agencies. 6. The present system of administering wilderness areas should be continued until the study by the National Outdoor Recreation Review Commission is completed. This study should specifically include a comprehensive inventory of present and potential multiple-use values of existing and proposed wildernesstype areas so a criterion will be available for weighing the multiple-use value against the single-use value as wilderness. This information would make possible a more intelligent, nonemotional determination of the amount, kind, and location of desirable wilderness areas. Senator CLINTON P. ANDERSON, PACIFIC LOGGING CONGRESS, Portland, Oreg., February 21, 1961. Chairman, Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C. DEAR SENATOR ANDERSON: The Pacific Logging Congress wishes to reconfirm its previously stated opposition to hasty enactment of wilderness legislation before the study and recommendations of the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission has been completed. Proponents of the several bills before this and previous sessions of Congress have stated that immediate enactment of wilderness legislation would assist the Commission in its work. This attitude is totally incomprehensible to us. The Commission is charged with the responsibility "*** to inventory and evaluate the outdoor recreation resources of the Nation and to determine the types and location of such resources and opportunities which will be required by present and future generations * * *." It is additionally charged "* * * to make comprehensive information and recommendations leading to these goals available * * *.” We have knowledge that the Commission is intensively studying the problem of wilderness preservation, and that its reports will contain recommendations relating specifically to this subject. It seems utterly inconceivable that enactment of wilderness legislation can be justified before the Government body specifically charged with the responsibility for making recommendations on this and other matters pertaining to natural resources is permitted to make its report to Congress. Enactment of wilderness legislation at this time would not help the Commission. It would only nullify the time, money, and effort already spent on wilderness research, and effectively preclude action on any recommendations the Commission might make. We also wish to reaffirm our opposition to any wilderness legislation which establishes a national wilderness preservation system. The objective of wilderness legislation should be to preserve wilderness, not to establish a new Federal system of lands. The phraseology used in the current and previous bills is an open invitation to future Congresses to further compartmentalize our public lands, and would be entirely contradictory to the concepts of resource management set forth in the multiple-use bill enacted during the last session of Congress. We also note that S. 174, among others, authorizes the President to adjust the boundaries of primitive areas before they officially become part of the proposed system rather than the Secretary of Agriculture, as in Committee Print No. 2 of S. 1123. We urge that this necessary discretionary authortly be returned to the Secretary of Agriculture. We also note that some wilderness bills now before Congress include Indian lands. This is an unconscionable invasion of the rights of private citizens. Indian lands are not public lands; they are private lands held in trust by the Government for their legal owners. We wish to make it abundantly clear that the Pacific Logging Congress favors wilderness preservation. We do, however, feel that the presently proposed legislation is poorly conceived and premature. The report of the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission will provide us with authoritative research findings on the subject. We believe that it would be extremely unwise to enact wilderness legislation before these findings are available for guidance. DEAR SENATOR ANDERSON: As president of the Western Pine Association I wish to submit an expression regarding S. 174, the wilderness system bill. Our association represents approximately 400 member companies operating some 450 lumber manufacturing mills in 12 Western States, and employing about 70,000 workmen. This industry is heavily dependent on Government timber for the reason that about 70 percent of all commercial forest land in our region is Government held. We purchase at Government auction about $75 million of timber a year, and we harvest as the Government directs, strictly to sustained-yield specifications. Hundreds of forest-borne communities in our 12 States and, in fact, a substantial segment of the whole western economy, are dependent on continuous availability of Government stumpage as raw material for our industry. We recognize that none of this raw material need come, has come, or should ever come from forested wilderness-type lands, but rather from commercial-type lands which are best suited to the growing, harvesting, and regrowing of forest crops. Our views on the wilderness system bill are prompted therefore by economic concern as well as general observations as American citizens interested in good government. Our board of directors, elected by district vote and representative of member opinion, has affirmed and reaffirmed clearly its viewpoints on wilderness preference. At a 1959 hearing on a predecessor wilderness bill, I presented our industry's position to this same committee as then constituted. My statement appears in the proceedings of that hearing. The same statement could apply today, with modifications to meet new provisions written into the new bill. Fundamentally, the lumber industry favors wilderness preservation. Any differences between us and proponents of this bill are differences of degree only. We would like to see substantial tracts of wilderness-caliber lands set aside for strictly wilderness use. We go even further. We favor inclusion of some representative tracts of commercial timberlands even though we realize the timber cannot be preserved beyond its allotted lifespan. However, these land withdrawals should be determined by land-use experts in an orderly manner on the basis of on-the-ground surveys and studies. Logic and reason should rule in all decisions. We should be careful not to cripple economic opportunities of western people by withdrawing more lands than needed for adequate wilderness reserves. Senate bill 174 does withdraw lands not needed and not best suited to wilderness use. As an example, I point to the Selway-Bitterroot primitive area, now in the process of being reclassified for a wilderness area set-aside. The lands are in Idaho and Montana. In 1936, under the U.S. Department of Agriculture's regulation L-20, the Forest Service "froze" 1,875,000 acres there pending deliberate land-use studies to determine proper boundaries for a large Selway-Bitterroot wilderness area. Boundaries for the primitive area, as it was called, were set by rough map reference because information on the area was incomplete. The Forest Service wanted to make sure there was enough. Now, after 25 years, the Forest Service has accumulated needed information about these extensive hinterlands. On the basis of a symposium of studies, a plan has been put forward for a wilderness area of great extent and high attraction, comprising 1,163,000 acres. But under S. 174 the Selway-Bitterroot wilderness area would take in all the original 1,875,000 acres of the primitive area, because the bill automatically places all so-called primitive areas in the wilderness system at the outset, regardless of Forest Service information and planning. Thus, in this instance alone, more than 500,000 acres deemed by Government land-use specialists to be of nonwilderness caliber or better suited to multiple-use management would be barred by statute from development. This is but one example of illogical and unreasonable withdrawal of Federal lands under this bill. Altogether S. 174 would earmark at the outset for wilderness status, without regard to what is in them or on them, about 71⁄2 million acres of currently unclassified primitive area lands. Your attention is called to this new provision in the wilderness bill. It should also be noted that this little understood provision deals with only a fraction of total Federal lands destined for inclusion under the bill. Our association's opposition to the wilderness system bill is based also on a belief that the legislation is unneeded and untimely. We know of no threat whatever to wilderness. A large and adequate wilderness establishment is certain under present administrative policies, and would be safer and surer for having been properly planned. And would it not be sensible to await the report of the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission before making legislative moves on this matter? Surely the Congress intended this study to provide guidance for legislation, not a postlude thereto. Again, let me reiterate our industry's position in favor of the wilderness concept but opposing this bill. I regret exceedingly that I am unable to testify in person at the hearing on S. 174, and respectfully ask that this statement be incorporated in the hearing record. Sincerely yours, J. D. BRONSON, President. THE WESTERN STATES LAND COMMISSIONERS ASSOCIATION, Hon. CLINTON P. ANDERSON, Chairman, Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, DEAR SENATOR ANDERSON: I am aware that Senate bill 174, concerning the establishment of a national wilderness system, is being considered in Congress. I firmly believe that S. 174 and similar legislation should be held in abeyance until the report of the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission has been completed. I want to reiterate that my position remains as stated by the Western States Land Commissioners who, in annual convention at Denver, Colo., in June 1959, adopted Resolution B attached. Sincerely yours, BERT L. COLE, Secretary, Legislative Chairman. RESOLUTION B Whereas it has come to the attention of the Western States Land Commissioners Association that there has been introduced in the current session of Congress, S. 1123, H.R. 5523, and numerous other bills for the permanent creation of "wilderness areas"; and Whereas the National Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission, established to study recreational needs throughout the United States, has only recently been constituted and appointed, and has not yet had an opportunity to study or to report upon the needs for wilderness areas; and Whereas the present administration of wilderness areas by existing agencies is wholly adequate and satisfactory, and the creation of additional organizations for this purpose would entail unnecessary duplication, confusion and expense; and Whereas the locking up of vast quantities of the natural resources of the Western States without first having made a complete study thereof would have an adverse economic impact upon the overall economy of said States: Now, therefore, be it Resolved, That the Western States Land Commissioners Association in convention in Denver, Colo., on June 11, 1959, hereby declares it to be to the best interest of the 18 Western member States to oppose the passage of said "wilderness" bills; and be it further Resolved, That the Secretary of the Western States Land Commissioners Association be and is hereby directed to transmit copies of this resolution to the respective member States' delegations in Congress, and such congressional committees as may hold hearings on said bills. Hon. CLINTON P. ANDERSON, IDAHO WILDLIFE FEDERATION, DEAR SENATOR ANDERSON: I am writing to you on behalf of the Idaho Wildlife Federation of which I am at present the State president. The federation is composed of approximately 20,000 members in the State of Idaho who are vitally concerned with conservation, and with the enjoyment of outdoor recreation such as camping, hunting, fishing, photography, and hiking. For the past several years our organization has strongly supported legislation which would give legislative recognition and protection to wilderness areas. At the hearings before the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs of the 85th Congress, 2d session, on S. 4028, we appeared in San Francisco November 10, 1958. My testimony is found on page 507 in part 2 of that transcript. At our State convention in Boise, Idaho, December 9, 10, and 11, the State federation passed unanimously a resolution supporting a wilderness bill similar to the old S. 4028. We are most grateful to you for S. 174 in the present Congress. Your recognition of this need to preserve a small portion of our country as a wilderness for our use and the use of generations to come is certainly indicative of the highest regard for your responsibility to the principles of good legislation. Adherence to the lofty ideals of the late Aldo Leopold will make this country a much richer place for our children. Certainly a part of their heritage should include a small portion of our country in as nearly an unsullied condition of natural beauty as received it. This is the least we can do. And our present generation needs a retreat from the pressures and cares of a jet age civilization. Someone once said of our wilderness areas, "Surely, we are not so poor that we need to destroy them nor so rich that we can afford to lose them." The Idaho Wildlife Federation would like our position to be included in the record of the hearings February 27 and 28. Please notify me how this can be done and keep me on your mailing list relative to future wilderness and conservation legislation. Respectfully, Hon. CLINTON P. ANDERSON, ERNEST E. DAY, President. FRIENDS OF THE WILDERNESS, Chairman, Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, DEAR SENATOR ANDERSON: Friends of the Wilderness wishes respectfully to express its complete, emphatic, and most urgent support of the proposed Wilderness Act, S. 174, which is now before your committee. Friends of the Wilderness is a voluntary organization of many thousands of members residing in all States of the Union. It was organized in 1949 to come to the support of the wilderness canoe country in the Superior National Forest of northeastern Minnesota. We have continued in existence because of the crises which have never ceased. Our supporters come from all walks of life. Contrary to statements you are sure to hear at this hearing, the great majority of our supporters are not of the well-to-do and leisure class. They are mostly the so-called little people, and most of them are young. The bulk of our contributions are in the individual memberships which amount to a dollar each. We have no salaries and no office expense. I write as executive secretary which office I have held from the beginning, and for which I have never received 1 cent of pay. Friends of the Wilderness has studied the new wilderness bill thoroughly, and we wish to emphasize as strongly as we can the very great immediate need for this kind of legislation. We say this because of our bitter experience in trying to protect and preserve the unique Minnesota wilderness canoe country-a bitter experience extending over 35 years of constant struggle. This canoe country, besides being one of the choicest wilderness regions in the Nation, and absolutely unlike any other in character, is also the closest by far to the center of our population. Thus, the successful rewards of potential exploitation are very great. The area has been under intermittent attack, by people seeking to circumvent or overthrow the U.S. Forest Service's wilderness regulations, since, at least, 1926, when the first roadless area restrictions were set up. Congress has intervened directly to protect and preserve and consolidate this wilderness canoe country several times, first, and fundamentally, back in 1930 when it prevented, with the Shipstead-Nolan-Newton Act, piratical wholesale flooding of hundreds of miles of public shoreline by timber companies and pulpmill operators under the guise of waterpower development. Without this direct intervention of Congress more than a generation ago, this matchless natural area-which is also uniquely rich in historical associations dating back to before the French and Indian wars, would have been destroyed, for completely superficial reasons, long ago. But this one act was not enough |