rampaging highwaymen, and, to sustain his sanity, hold out for the open greenness around the emerging supercities. Noting his growth in economy and anxiety, he can strive for a more rapid growth in his own competence and honesty. Competent, honest people will learn to live in peace, and by so living will avoid a squandering of our one ration of natural resources. With the race to squander called off, they may even drop the compulsion to keep up with the Jonses, over the fence and over the sea. Man will relax a little, lower his pitch, his stress, his coveting, and his wear and tear on the only environment he had better count on, and must share well or no longer know. It is getting very late and the Sierra Club is dedicated to keeping it from getting too late. We shall seek a renewed stirring of love for the earth; we shall urge that what man is capable of doing to the earth is not always what he ought to do; and we shall plead that all Americans, here, now, determine what a wide, spacious, untrammeled freedom shall remain in the midst of the American earth as living testimony that this generation, our own, had love for the next. The effect of the bill on the wilderness user: The Sierra Club is occasionally criticized for its own use of wilderness. Without thinking too much about their inconsistency, some of the people who allege that wilderness is used too little to be needed will accuse the club of taking too many people into the wilderness. Not knowing how miserably poor most of our members are as fishermen-that they would rather watch trout than catch and eat fish-they also accuse us of fishing out the high mountain lakes. It gets worse than that. People who would like to rip up meadows with tote-gotes and forests with bulldozers worry about what a few recreation mules are doing to wilderness campsites. Recently an Oregon forester-an industry man-has uged that hoses be kept out of his backcountry forest-but doesn't seem to worry about caterpillar tractors and chain saws. We are sensitive to the criticism and have tried to become experts in "Going Light." We have published a book with that title. We have developed ways and means of wilderness travel which has minimum impact on the wilderness resources and we are open to suggestions for reducing the present minimum. With respect to use of recreational livestock, we have developed one kind of wilderness traveling trip-we call it a high trip-open to people of widely ranging physical ability that uses one head of packstock for every three people served. One forestry organization conducts wilderness trips in which almost the opposite ratio prevails-three head of livestock per person served. Many of our trips use no livestock at all. We have made war on the litterbug-the mountain strewball-and have developed practical techniques for efficient use and enjoyment of wilderness as wilderness. We want the multitude to experience wilderness, but a few at a time, by primitive means, with the least possible impact, taking out what they have taken in—an eight-word motto: Find it wild, tread softly, keep it wild. With the passage of this wilderness bill, we expect the pressures for efficient use to increase. We will have to face to the practical problems of how many can go where in the wilderness and for how long. The time will come when, in the wilderness, we shall take nothing but pictures and leave nothing but footprints. Just as the grazer, the prospector, and the lumberman may feel an increased restriction under the wilderness bill, the outdoor recreationist too feels increasingly rigid standards in his use of the wilderness resource. In supporting the wilderness bill, we thing we have faced these problems squarely, concluding that reasonable regulation, with public hearings held under democratic principles, is far preferable to suffering the loss of the country's wilderness resource. Wilderness bill arguments, pro and con: The present form of the wilderness bill represents thousands of hours of consideration by all of the interests affected by the bill. The bill's proponents have patiently reviewed the arguments of the opponents and compromises have been achieved on nearly all points of controversy. There are, however, lingering arguments still voiced in opposition to the bill. We shall try to provide reasonable and cogent answers to these remaining questions. 1. It has been said that the wilderness bill would cause primitive areas to be reclassified as wilderness without public hearing. Answer: The bill as reported by the Senate includes specific provisions for orderly review of the primitive areas before designation as wild or wilderness areas. The bill does not affect the Secretary of Agriculture's existing authority to hold public hearings with respect to primitive areas. 2. It has been said that the wilderness bill establishes a system devoted to single use as opposed to multiple use. Answer: We submit that wilderness designation encompasses a multiplicity of uses, and only those uses which are preemptive have been excluded by the present language of the bill. 3. It is frequently said that wilderness areas that are used by only 1 percent of the people and some are hardly used at all. Answer: We question the basis for this statement. If it were indeed true, there might be less cause for alarm. Even granting a measure of truth-granting this would require accepting a naively elementary concept of use—the statement ignores the importance of sustained use and the long-term public interest. 4. It has been said that the provisions of the wilderness bill would preclude mining activity within wilderness areas. Answer: Existing mineral rights are recognized in the bill and such prospecting activity as is not inconsistent with the establishment of wilderness areas is specifically permitted by the bill. There is no urgency, if we are to grant the future any rights, in rushing to use up today such vestige of commercial resources as may exist in wilderness. 5. It has been said that the timber resources in wilderness should be harvested periodically. Answer: We are convinced that the scientific importance of wilderness forests as control areas far outweigh their board-foot value. 6. It is said that wilderness is for the exceptionally rugged individual who can afford to pack into back-country areas. Answer: For more than half a century the Sierra Club has had firsthand experience with people and wilderness. Our own information suggests that the only exceptional qualities required of the wilderness traveler are imagination and strength of character. Beyond that, he is apt to be from almost any walk of life. 7. It is said that the bill conflicts with the Forest Act of 1897 and the Multiple Use Act of 1960. Answer: We believe that the provisions of the wilderness bill are logically and necessarily supplementary to these laws. Language of the wilderness bill specifically provides for consonance. 8. It has been said that protective management is unduly complicated by the provisions of this bill. Answer: The bill specifically provides for protective management. The list of possible objections could be carried on and on. But we should like to comment on one question which has been repeated at frequent intervals in antiwilderness circles: "Why not hold up the wilderness bill," they ask, "Until the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission has made its report?" We have thought that this was a search for time and not for information. The Sierra Club has a special interest in the purposes of both the wilderness bill and the Commission. The wilderness bill idea was first proposed in its basic concept at our Second Biennial Wilderness Conference in 1951 by Howard Zahniser, whose leadership in this important field fully deserves a secure niche in conservation history. Further, we launched the Scenic Resources Review idea in 1955 and presented it to audiences all over the country in the ensuing year, publishing upon it at length. Its counterpart in California has now been completed and we have great admiration for the energy and skill the Izaak Walton League brought to bear in helping make a reality of the idea. As parent of the idea, we know that a temporary commission was not intended to interfere with setting permanent wilderness policy, and that a commission report on all outdoor recreation was not intended to be a substitute for, or delay of, a preservation system for wilderness. The wilderness bill is the house we need now, a structure to withstand the storm of conflict that lies ahead. The Commission's report may well deal in part with the question whether the house needs to be enlarged or reduced, but only in small part with that question. The report can be presumed to be primarily concerned about what goes on outside the house and only incidentally about who may some day be sheltered in it. The Commission's agenda has been too broad for it to have time to consult with the organizations primarily concerned with wilderness preservation-the question of what should be sheltered in the house. To clear up a cloudy analogy, a man builds his house before winter comes, and before he knows exactly how many children there will be to rear in it. We need the wilderness bill now as a protective device for those wilderness lands we have already set aside. We know their preservation is necessary. We know it in our conscience without having to pore over charts, tables, and diagrams. And we know wilderness preservation has not deprived the Nation; quite the contrary. If the ORRRC report should somehow prove that there is too much wilderness in the national wilderness preservation system, the wilderness bill provides all the necessary keys and passageways for removing wilderness. If the report proves that more wilderness should be set aside, we'll have a wilderness system to keep it in. There is no lockup. The use of the term "lockup" is pure, unmitigated cliche-an attempt to substitute label for prejudice for analysis and logic. The wilderness bill does not move an acre an inch. It leaves everything where it is and gives someone else, later on, a chance to decide whether wilderness is worth the effort to preserve it. What we need to do now, above all, is heed the admonition of William H. Whyte, Jr., to practice retroactive planning-to set aside and protect immediately what we think we'll need and to rationalize at leisure whether or not we were right, secure in the knowledge that we can always dispense with wilderness, but can never create it. We thank the committee for this opportunity to assure a wilderness for the future. Mrs. PrOST. Thank you, Dr. Crowe. (Committee note: The following supplemental statement was subsequently received by the committee.) EXTENSION OF SIERRA CLUB TESTIMONY, SACRAMENTO, CALIF., NOVEMBER 6, 1961 A few further comments are appropriate in view of testimony that has been given to the committee in these field hearings. 1. The loggers' real reason for opposition has been made clear by Mrs. Pfost's careful questioning. We are aware that there are some people and firms in the timber business that want to get into the forests now reserved in wilderness. Our own estimate is that all the forests now reserved in wilderness would serve no more than a single year's annual cut in the United States. The following year we would have to look somewhere else for timber-and all wilderness forest woud be gone. The solution to the problem of finding enough timber for America's future does not lie in the small fragment of dedicated wilderness forest or even in the residual stands of virgin timber outside wilderness. The solution, as the Forest Service has made clear, lies in the privately owned forests and woodlots of this country. It lies in reforesting lands already rendered unproductive by careless logging. If the saving of the vestige of wilderness forest works a hardship on a specific community in order to rescue an important resource for the Nation as a whole, then we must find ways by which the Nation can compensate the community. 2. Forests protect watersheds. Mrs. Pfost has remarked cogently about the critical importance of undisturbed forests as protection for vital watersheds. Through the ages, there has been a natural evolution of an entire chain of life in the forests that guarantees soil preservation-in turn assuring optimum protection of the forest trees themselves and the watershed as well. An undisrupted forest floor is one of the finest of all reservoirs. It costs not 1 cent to operate. It maintains the purity of water as nothing else can, and it regulates the flow in perpetuity, without silting up, without inundation, and without expense-at the same time providing an unsurpassed type of terrain for renewing man's spirit. If the forests did nothing more than protect watersheds, their preservation intact would be worth the effort on all the steeper watersheds of the Nation. Commercial forest operations, efficiently conducted on more gently sloped lands, can be made to supply the national need for timber products. 3. Wilderness preservation does not imperil fire protection: Certain press stories arising out of the McCall hearing led us to inquire of the Forest Service to make certain that protection provided under provisions of the wilderness bill would be adequate to safeguard the forests. On November 1, 1961, we wired Chief Forester McArdle as follows, anticipating that there would be further testimony in Sacramento expressing worry about fire: Chief Forester RICHARD E. MCARDLE, NOVEMBER 1, 1961. An October 29 AP story from Boise states: "Idahoans are warned that passage of the wilderness bill would mean that many areas would have to be considered potential sacrifices to the ravages of forest fires. Senator Henry Dworshak, Representative from Idaho, said he was informed that inability to move firefighters quickly because of the lack of access roads is the price the Nation must pay in order to have wilderness areas. This, Dworshak said Thursday, is the view of Richard McArdle, Chief of the U.S. Forest Service. McArdle said forest roads are essential to effective forest fire fighting. Historical results justify all of the expenditures involved in getting a complete road system on the ground, McArdle wrote Dworshak." We believe the story does not correctly represent your position and would appreciate your confirming this. At the Bend, Oreg., hearing, Assistant Chief Edward Crafts testified (pp. 390-392) that the wilderness bill would not change present Forest Service practices in protecting wilderness forests from fire. We believe clarification by you to be highly important, and would appreciate receiving a copy of your statement as soon as possible. We are sending copies of this to the Associated Press, Senator Church, and Representatives Aspinall and Pfost so that the Forest Service position may be represented fairly. EDGAR WAYBURN, M.D., Unfortunately, the reply did not come until after the Sacramento hearing and thus could not be included in our material then. The Chief's reply of November 9 was signed by Edward C. Crafts, as follows: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, FOREST SERVICE, Dr. EDGAR WAYBURN, Washington, D.C., November 9, 1961. President, Sierra Club, San Francisco, Calif. DEAR DR. WAYBURN: This refers to your telegram of November 1 relating to an AP story from Boise commenting on the wilderness bill. We are aware of a news item which appeared in the October 27 issue of the Lewiston Morning Tribune based on a letter to Senator Dworshak. We presume the AP story is along the same line. Under the circumstances the information which will prove most helpful now is that available in the correspondence involved, copies of which are attached. These are Senator Dworshak's letter of August 11 to Chief McArdle and our reply of September 18. You will note that in this correspondence we covered two separate situations. The first situation was the general forest and watershed areas of the national forests in Idaho still in need of an augmented fire control system which includes the need for more roads, trails, and other facilities. To obtain the best management results in such areas-that is, the optimum production and use of the multiple service and goods from the national forest lands-roads are a key requirement. At the same time this system of roads affords ready and convenient access for the work force to cope with outbreaks of fire, insects, and diseases. The second situation was that associated with wilderness-type areas. Since permanent roads are prohibited in wilderness areas, alternative means of access and protection procedures are necessary. We can do an acceptable job of fire control in wilderness areas without the complete transportation system necessary in other areas. The costs are greater, of course. The philosophy, policies, and practices for protecting wilderness areas from fire, insects, and diseases as you will remember, were set forth in Chief McArdle's talk before the wilderness conference in San Francisco March 16, 1957. In case you do not have a file copy one is enclosed for your review. Since 1957, improvements have been made. For instance, the use of air tankers has increased significantly. This is only one example of the need to conceive, develop, and use new and better methods to get jobs done. As you might expect, the cost of doing business this way is very high where roads do not exist and more dependence is placed in air tankers. In summary, therefore, the Forest Service policy with respect to the fire protection in wilderness areas is consistent with statements made by me at the Bend hearings you cited. So that you are fully informed of our position with respect to S. 174, we are enclosing a copy of Secretary Freeman's letter of February 24, 1961, to Senator Anderson, chairman of the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs. We hope this information serves to answer your questions adequately. RICHARD E. MCARDLE, Chief. By EDWARD C. CROFTS. We are enclosing copies for the committee file of the correspondence Dr. Crafts refers to. This matter of fire protection is of such great importance that we wish the committee would seek out, and include at the close of our statement, Forest Service replies to the questions listed below. As Dr. Crafts' letter says, Dr. McArdle talked about this matter at our Fifth Biennial Wilderness Conference, held in San Francisco in 1957. In the discussion period following his statement, we asked the same general questions we now ask again. We think that all Americans should know what the costs of fire protection have been for wilderness forest, and what they are likely to be, to judge from recent trends. (1) What were the costs, in constant dollars per acre protected, for fire prevention and fire suppression in 1940, 1950, and 1960 for comparable areas protected by (a) Fire trails and ground-supported firefighting crews? (b) Fire roads and ground-supported firefighting crews? (c) Air patrol and air support of firefighting crews, using— (1) borate bombers? (2) smoke jumpers? (3) helicopters? (2) What is the incidence rate of fire in wilderness forests? (3) What is the rate in nonwilderness forests? (a) of fires caused by recreationists? (b) by logging and all related timber operations? (c) by lightning? (4) What is the Forest Service expectation of constant dollar costs by 1970, expressed in terms that will (a) reflect the capital costs of road construction and watershed restoration in areas opened up so as to be protected by ground methods, and that will (b) reflect expected changes in air-defense costs projected from reasonable interpretation of trends? In conclusion We are impressed by the shortsightedness of opposition to the wilderness bill. Opponents appear to see only as far as their immediate personal gain. Surely they must know that not a single acre of land will be added to the Nation's reserved wilderness through passage of the bill, and they surely must know, further, that addition to the wilderness reserves will be more difficult under the bill than it now is. Surely they must know that resources are not being "locked up"--but preserved for the benefit of future generations not nearly so fortunate as we, with ample provision for such release of wilderness as the future determines to be essential for other purposes. Surely they must know that wilderness areas are not devoted to single use but true optimium-use conservation-every acre kept in a natural state provides pure water and recreation of highest quality, as well as scenery, wildlife habitat, and spiritual peace of mind that will benefit untold millions in the years to come. The only "single use" is a single denial of exploitation such as logging in a forest or mining an an area where other values outweigh the minerals. The wilderness bill as represented in S. 174 has been studied exhaustively. Compromises have been made to make it acceptable to anyone who really wants any wilderness at all. We urge its speedy passage. Mrs. Prost. Our next witness is Mrs. Betty C. Carl. |