the creation of a Point Reyes National Seashore in California. Sometimes it is the mining interests, who now oppose creation of a Great Basin National Park in Nevada. Sometimes it is the lumbermen, who last year proposed that boundaries of the Glacier Peak Wilderness Area in Washington be drawn so as to exclude all the biggest and most beautiful trees; for the same trees that campers delight to sit under, look at, and take pictures of are the trees that lumbermen find profitable to cut. We challenge the leaders of our vital mining, cattle, and lumber industries to show that their industry or the American economy will be seriously hurt by the Wilderness Act. It adds not 1 acre to the wilderness-type lands already established. It applies at the very most to 2 percent of all our land. If these interests cannot survive and make profits without using this land too, in addition to the 98 percent they already have access to, then we are scraping the bottom of the barrel and had best look for substitutes immediately. The 2 percent would keep them going how little longer? Aren't most of our economic problems matters of oversupply, not scarcity? Is our country so poor that every small high-mountain meadow must be grazed, every deposit of low-grade ore mined, every virgin forest turned into a tree farm? We believe America can well afford to preserve the small remnants of wilderness scattered throughout the Western States. We also believe that we are not so rich in wilderness that we can afford to lose any more of it. Passage of the Wilderness Act will make two major changes in our wilderness lands, changes we believe necessary and reasonable. 1. It will restrict mining on national forest wilderness lands and parts of the national wildlife refuges. This restriction applies to less than 6 percent of our public domain; the remaining 94 percent remain open to mining and prospecting. 2. It will limit the discretion of administrators who now have the authority to establish, eliminate, or change boundaries of the national forest wilderness lands. It would make wilderness determination a responsibility of the President and of Congress. It is this change which has aroused lumber interests to oppose the Wilderness Act. As was admitted so candidly during the November 6 hearing, "lumber interests hope to get into the primitive areas and cut the trees there." They fear that passage of the act will make it more difficult for them to get the trees they want. They are right. This is exactly why we support this change. The opposition of the lumber industry is unjustified and unreasonable. They are not now able to cut all the timber available to them. According to Senate Report 635: "The States with national forest wilderness areas have 65.9 million acres of commercial national forest lands, outside wilderness, with an allowable annual cut, on a sustained-yield basis, of 8.475 billion board feet. The gap between actual timber and the amount which could have been cut was in excess of 1 billion board feet of timber. The gap in Montana alone, some 524 million board feet, is more timber than all national forest wilderness-type areas could produce if they were committed to exploitation and it was economically feasible to exploit them."1 Furthermore, according to the same report: "There are 52 million acres of accessible forest land needing reforestation in the United States. Planted to trees, these idle acres could produce 6 billion board feet annually-at least 12 times the potential capacity of the higher, less accessible wilderness forest lands." The lineup of sides at all the committee's field hearings clearly demonstrates what the issue is. The identity and strong opposition of vested interests is the best testimony of how much the public needs the Wilderness Act. They oppose the act because it will give wilderness stronger portection, will make it more difficult for them to influence boundary changes that they can get into the wilderness for company gain. The identity of the supporting groups is the best evidence that passage of the Wilderness Act is in the long-range public interest. Dozens of groups, their members numbering into the thousands, none with dollars to gain, from all parts of the country, urge passage of the Wilderness Act. Very truly yours, TRUSTEES FOR CONSERVATION, 1 Senate Report No. 635. July 27, 1961. "Establishing a National Wilderness Preservation System for the Permanent Good of the Whole People, and for Other Purposes," Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, p. 6. Mr. JOHNSON. The next witness is Beula Edminston, secretary for the Committee for the Preservation of the Tule Elk of Indio County. You may proceed. STATEMENT OF BEULA EDMINSTON, SECRETARY OF THE COMMITTEE FOR THE PRESERVATION OF THE TULE ELK, LOS ANGELES, CALIF. Miss EDMINSTON. Gentlemen, I am Beula Edminston, secretary of the Committee for the Preservation of the Tule Elk. It is a national organization representing thousands of people. It has strong representation in each of the Western States and also Alaska. We urge immediate passage of the Wilderness Act without amendment or with amendments to strengthen rather than to weaken it, for the protection of our small remaining wilderness now while we still have some of it. As the secretary for the Committee for the Preservation of the Tule Elk, scarcely a day passes that I do not receive new memberships and the plea to work unceasingly for the preservation of worthy wilderness areas where the Tule elk and all wildlife can live and those who love nature can hope to see them. This is the voice of Americans from every walk of life and from every part of the Nation-calling for the preservation of the wilderness from which our proud Nation has grown. Perhaps we should sing "America" more often: I love thy rocks and rills, Thy woods and templed hills; Wilderness, the sanctuaries of nature, are perhaps one of the strongest citadels of democracy. We cannot afford to lose them by ruthless pursuit of the commercial components thereof. We urge this Congress to lock up for safekeeping some of our vital wilderness. There is no need to fear locking it up. Congress holds the key to lock and to unlock. The key is not thrown away. A more valid concern is to watch that doors legally locked for safekeeping are not opened without proper authority. Multiple use has become the panacea for the pressures of population on resources. There are a multiplicity of uses for our natural resources, but it is not good, or even possible, to have all of the uses in the same place. Wilderness is not wilderness when it is something else, and there is a vital place for wilderness in America. Wilderness is more important than we know to science. Out of the molds came penicillin and out of the undisturbed, unbroken chain of life comes the answer to most of our baffling mysteries. Wilderness is more and more important to recreation. We can stand the pressures of urbanization and stress by the very knowledge that the wilderness is there-if only in our dreams. But save all you can of it for Americans make their dreams come true. Every weekend the streams of people pouring forth from our cities prove that we want as much freedom from the city as our time and resources can afford. On vacations families which used to travel 40 miles from home now go 1,000. Conrad L. Wirth, Director of the National Park Service, said the increased mobility, population, and leisure time, coupled with a growing desire of Americans to relax with their families in areas of natural beauty is expected to produce a continued heavy use of our national parks and related areas; that the attendance in our national parks totaled over 72 million people in 1960, almost 3.7 million more than the 1959 record, and that by far the greatest increase was among the campers. The same thing that drove the Tule elk out of its native habitat is driving man out of his. Wilderness is imperative to save some of our plant and animal species from actual extinction. It is also imperative for the enrichment, inspiration, knowledge, and enjoyment of the American people. Let's keep the magnificent living museums of our Nation's past, the outdoor laboratories for science, the living natural history books for the future-a leading columnist wrote recently in the Los Angeles Times: We speak rather sadly of extinct creatures such as auks, dinosaurs, sabertooth tigers, and pigmy horses, but we don't do much to keep some of our present-day creatures from following the path to oblivion into the Great Beyond. A census just taken of California's unique Tule elk, found nowhere else in the world, shows the herd has been reduced to 296 after have numbered 327 last December. Let us not delay or multiple use away our wilderness and be sadly remembered for our hindsight or folly. Let us pass the wilderness bill, without crippling amendments, in the House at the earliest possible moment; if changed, add strength to that historic bill. Perhaps one of the truest patriotic captions of late is the one which reads: "God bless America. Let us save some of it." Thank you. Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you. Are there questions? If not, next on the list today is Dr. Ralph Hawkins of Palo Alto. Calif. Dr. Hawkins. STATEMENT OF RALPH HAWKINS, M.D., PALO ALTO, CALIF. Dr. HAWKINS. My name is Dr. Ralph Hawkins from Palo Alto, Calif. I am a surgeon by profession and professor of anatomy at the California University Medical School. I appear here today as a private citizen, representing no organization. I might add that I have stockholdings in commercial timber companies and livestock interests, and that the opponents who seem to speak for these industries do not seem to realize that their constituents do not back up all of the objections that they make. It might be any one of tens of thousands of other Californians who would be glad to stand here in my place and advocate the passage of this bill. As I read through S. 174, I am impressed with the fairness and the considerations of the provisions that have been made for protecting and providing for all legitimate conflicting interests. I think that many of the objections the opponents express, if one reads the provisions of this act carefully, are without foundation. But I think the bill is weaker than is desirable and that, if the bill is amended, it should be amended in the direction of strengthening it. I, for one, do not want to see my country become a land in which every tree, every acre, and every mountain, is nothing but a source of profit. There must be something left to live for and to be proud of. With regard to timber, the exploitation of remaining wilderness areas, many of them have no timber resources. In some it is so marginal that it could not be brought out at a profit, and our efforts to bolster up and increase our timber resources might well be directed more in the direction of relieving the timber industry of its unfavorable tax structure which is interfering with reforestation. Thank you. (Dr. Hawkins complete statement follows:) Representative WAYNE ASPINALL, PALO ALTO, CALIF., November 6, 1961. Chairman, House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, DEAR SIR: The wilderness bill (S. 174) passed by the Senate in the first session of this Congress is under consideration now by the House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs. As a private citizen, and not in representation of any organization, I respectfully urge that the committee report favorably on this bill, that it be brought to the floor of the House at a very early date in the 2d session of the 87th Congress, and that it not be amended in any way which would remove or reduce designated areas in the wilderness preservation system or result in changing their wilderness character. I think that it is particularly important that the action on this legislation be prompt. I have studied this bill thoroughly and have followed its legislative history and the hearings in the Senate committee over a period of years. It would be hard to point to any piece of legislation which has been more completely studied from every point of view, or as ably; it would be hard to show a better example of a bill in which there has been such reasonable consideration of the conflicting interests by the proponents of this legislation. I feel that every reasonable compromise has already been made toward resolving genuine conflicts and that no more remains to be done in this direction. In fact, if anything, it is a weaker bill in respect to attaining its purpose than it should be in the long range national interest. In respect to one of the areas which would be a wilderness area under this bill, the Cloud Peak area in the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming, I have made a personal study for many years; I know that the proposed boundaries of that area have been drawn with the greatest care and consideration of the economic interests involved and the proposed wilderness designation is the best possible use of that area. It should be emphasized that around the outside of many wilderness areas are grazing areas, ranching lands, timberlands, etc., the long-range usefulness and economic value of which depends on their being an undeveloped and uninhabited wilderness area within. In keeping these areas as wilderness we, at the same time, preserve and protect their function as watershed. Insofar as certain opponents claim the possible potential need to use such areas for lumbering, for reclamation projects, dams, etc., a point of diminishing returns has been reached about such developments, and efforts to increase our timber resources may be better directed toward changes of tax structure that will favor reforestation of cutover lands and more prudent use of commercial stands of timber. It appears to me, from acquaintance with the local situation existing in regard to some areas, as for example the Cloud Peak area, that to permit the building of roads into the proposed areas, or dams within them, would actually operate to the benefit of a very few individuals at the expense of what is a national interest of all the people in having these areas remain as they are. Furthermore, the economic benefit that these individuals might derive would be marginal at best. To allow the exploitation or spoilation of the proposed areas by certain selfish individuals seems to me a tortured way to construe the idea of free enterprise. It is one of the functions of our Federal Government to define "policy" where the national interest and that of some individuals or group are in real or supposed conflict, and this is an example. The fact we have had wilderness areas in this country in the past has been an important thing in the shaping of the national character and morale. You can't measure that in terms of economic statistics, yet it truly is a part of those freedoms which we make large appropriations to protect. The establishment of a policy of preservation of the wilderness areas by the Congress becomes a necessity because of the way in which increasing population pressures have been building up. The time to do it is now. To leave the matter to chance, to allow the areas to become used for other purposes or "developed" truly will not pay. It will not pay economically (those areas would not be wilderness today if they were not submarginal from the standpoint of economic profit); it will not pay politically, morally, or historically. There are already in the bill very adequate provisions about what shall be done from the standpoint of policy when these areas by any chance become involved in matters of defense, fire control, conservation of water supply, etc. There should be no miscalculating the wishes of the many tens of thousands of our citizens, like myself, about wanting this bill to become law. It is one of the things for which the present administration has a mandate from the people. Yours respectfully, Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Dr. Hawkins. RALPH HAWKINS, M.D. Next we have Mr. John Tyler, Santa Monica, Calif. STATEMENT OF JOHN TYLER, SANTA MONICA, CALIF., VICE CHAIRMAN, SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA CHAPTER OF THE NATURE CONSERVANCY Mr. TYLER. I am John Tyler, representing the Southern California Chapter of the Nature Conservancy. I am not going to refer to my prepared speech at all, but try to bring out a few points that have come up in the meeting. For example, no offers have been made here to strengthen the bill, but just pure opposition. They have a little tiny reason of their own, and they want to wipe out the entire bill to protect their own individual interests. The people that want to wipe it all out are primarily commercial interests who have their own problems and they have definite rights for their interests. But let's look at the record of what they have done. They have taken 98 percent of these United States. And what have they done with it? They have spoiled most of it; and, now that they have used it all up, they want to take the little bit that is left and say, "We want to share this with you under a multiple-use basis." Their idea of multiple use is to tear it up so it is no longer wilderness. This is not multiple use so far as we can see. We feel, in some cases, there is a single use of an individual parcel but a multiple use of an overall program. So we are saying, single use for less than 2 percent, and multiple use is single use for mining, for lumbering, and these other things elsewhere, which make a concrete multiple-use prospect, but you cannot take every individual acre and put every kind of use to it. This is impossible, and wilderness cannot be made tiny. It must have size. Therefore, we have to bear that in mind. Are we losing anything in our tying up our natural resources, minerals? Certainly not. Eventually, if we do not control it, what is going to happen? We are going to use it. Where do we go from there? We are 98 percent through it now. Then we are going to have to use lower grade ores. Let's start today using them. |