monumental step, the wilderness bill, is recognition of the need for retaining additional wilderness values. With our population now doubling every 40 years, it must be obvious that that deed will become critically urgent in the foreseeable future. Many national recreation areas are already beginning to suffer from overuse. The only opponents to this bill are commercial interests who make extravagant claims, such as "locking up," which connotes no mining, no lumbering, no grazing in perpetuity. But the bill only specifies that certain national forest areas, not now mined or lumbered, shall continue to be used as now, with possible mining, lumbering, and grazing permitted, with the added provision that they be administered in such manner that wilderness be preserved. And of course Congress can modify that policy at any time the national interest requires. Ramblers, a nonprofit conservation and recreation organization, with no political axes to grind or commercial interests whatever, strongly urge prompt passage of the wilderness preservation system bill, hoping that the House will remove the Senate's crippling amendments and add none of their own. We request that this letter be made part of the record. ERNEST C. BOWER, Executive Secretary. Representative WAYNE ASPINALL, ROAMER HIKING CLUB, INC., Chairman, House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, Room 4023, State Capitol Building, Sacramento, Calif.: The Roamer Hiking Club urgently requests passage without further undue delay (S. 174) the Wilderness Act to insure that wilderness areas are not exploited for any commercial or special interest groups. The above will serve to introduce our representative, Mr. Arthur B. Johnson at the hearing to be held at 10 a.m. Monday, November 6, 1961. Yours truly, BLYTHE O. EDWARDS, Federation and Conservation, Roamer Hiking Club. WEST COVINA, CALIF. Re statement favoring passage of the wilderness bill, S. 174, Sacramento, Calif., November 6, 1961. Representative GRACIE PFOST, Chairman, Public Lands Subcommittee of the House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, Nampa, Idaho. The undersigned citizens with no commercial axes to grind request your committee to support the passage of wilderness legislation as embodied in S. 174, as so overwhelmingly passed by the Senate of the United States. The United States was carved out of a wilderness. It was founded upon wilderness. Wilderness is America's heritage. It is our country's duty to enshrine as temples of its glory prime examples of that heritage. To enshrine the 14 or more million acres of prime examples of our remaining wilderness areas held by the U.S. Forest Service may appear to be enormous. However, when considered as part of the whole, it comprises less than 1 percent of the area of the United States. We firmly believe that our country owes it to itself to set aside less than 1 percent of its area to enshrine the glory of America's forest wilderness heritage. Opponents of this necessary and worthwhile legislation oppose it on the basis that we cannot afford to reduce our resources of timber and minerals by the great amount that are contained in the wilderness areas anticipated to be included in the wilderness system. Attention of the cominitee is called to the fact that if these wilderness areas did contain resources as extensive and as valuable as the opponents of the wilderness bill maintain, American ingenuity would have long ago extracted these resources. The fact that these areas remain wilderness today is unrefutable testimony to the fact that they contain little of resources beyond the resource of wilderness itself. If these areas actually did contain the resources of the valuables attributed to them by the opponents of this legislation, it would be wise and frugal for the Congress of the United States to place at least 1 percent of our great heritage of wilderness in the bank as a nest egg for the future. Despite statements to the contrary, ample provisions are provided in S. 174 for the withdrawing from the bank of these resources if perchance the survival of our country should ever actually depend on them. The attached article, "The Ultimate Limit of Our Resources," by Prof. James Bonner, of the California Institute of Technology, points out that eventually civilization on this planet will be reduced to the utilization of the bare rocks, the seas, and the air over them for everyday existence. He also points out that, if we are wise enough to maintain that even as much as 2 percent of our area as wilderness to the end, we would only postpone "a moment in time" that day when we would be reduced to using the rocks, the seas, and the air for our very existence. We agree with Professor Bonner. We believe that your committee will do likewise. We urgently request your committee to support wilderness legislation as embodied in Senate bill S. 174, as it was passed by the Senate. We request that this statement and the attached article be made a part of the record. ARTHUR B. JOHNSON, NEAL A. JOHNSON, THE DESERT PROTECTIVE COUNCIL, INC., HOUSE COMMITTEE ON INTERIOR AND INSULAR AFFAIRS, GENTLEMEN: It is a matter of concern to many of our voters that the United States, for all its interest in the preservation of national parks and similar areas, lags behind some other countries. In course of a recent trip through some of the Pacific countries, Mrs. Taylor and I discovered that little New Zealand has set aside more than 5 percent of her territory in national parks. Even overcrowded Japan, with a population of 100 million people in an area no larger than California, has more than twice as high a percentage of her surface area preserved for posterity than do we in the United States. The wilderness bill, termed by some "the most important conservation measure now before Congress," would help provide for the preservation of only 2 percent of our land, and would not interfere with the legitimate interests of any group. The members of the Desert Protective Council, which is active especially in California and the Southwestern States, are solidly for the wilderness bill. We trust that your committee may see its way clear to recommend the enactment of the bill by the House, and to work for its early approval. Sincerely yours, WALTER P. TAYLOR, President. P.S.-We request that the above statement be made a part of the record. Mrs. Prost. Our next witness will be Lewis F. Clark, Federation of Western Outdoor Clubs. You may proceed, Mr. Clark. STATEMENT OF LEWIS F. CLARK, PRESIDENT, FEDERATION OF WESTERN OUTDOOR CLUBS, ALAMEDA, CALIF. Mr. CLARK. Madam Chairman and members of the subcommittee, my name is Lewis F. Clark, a resident of Alameda, Calif. My vocation is engineer with the Pacific Telephone Co. in San Francisco. My avocation is study and protection of the wilderness. I appear here as president of the Federation of Western Outdoor Clubs. My statement is made on behalf of the federation. The Federation of Western Outdoor Clubs has 30,000 members who turn to the wilderness lands of this country for recreation and spirit ual refreshment. We are pleased that the Senate has passed a Wilderness Preservation Act, S. 174, and we urge the House of Representatives to pass this measure also. The federation consists of 36 member clubs. Their headquarters are in California, Hawaii, Oregon, Utah, and Washington. The members reside in these and other Western States including Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, and New Mexico. They represent a wide cross section of the population. Many are of modest means. They have learned that the wilderness areas offer rich resources for physical and spiritual recreation at low cost. They are people from many communities, with widely varying backgrounds and interests, yet with a common understanding and appreciation of what our parks and wildlands can provide for the camper, the hiker, the fisherman, the hunter, the naturalist, the mountaineer, the photographer, the skier, the trail rider, or anyone else who seeks outdoor activities in a natural setting. The members of the federation are representative of many other people who are not affiliated with such organizations; their numbers demonstrate that wilderness is for the many-not, as some would have us believe, "for the few, the wealthy, and the hardy." The federation strongly supports the principle of this wilderness legislation for the following reasons: We all recognize that wilderness demand is increasing; population is increasing; the wilderness share for each of us is decreasing: The truth of the self-evident proposition is emphasized by the increasing visitation to our national parks, national forest wilderness areas, State parks, and other recreation areas. The wilderness share for each is decreasing not only because there are more people living in our country but also because more of these people are seeking the benefits of these natural resources in their natural state. The currently available wilderness lands are threatened by impairment or gradual nibbling away: Evidence presented before your subcommittee shows that there are strong pressures to void the very endorsement of the principle of wilderness preservation; to delay its establishment until the commodity interests can "get theirs," to hamper and hinder the expression of the will of the majority of the people who, we believe, want this type of wilderness protection. Present protection procedures are inadequate: It is true that the Congress has established numerous national parks whose wilderness sections would be included in the areas covered by the proposed law. It is true that the U.S. Forest Service has established various primitive, wild, and wilderness areas within the national forests, much of which would be covered by the proposed law. These forest areas comprise now a splendid body of reserves, and the Forest Service officials are to be highly commended for the establishment and protection of these areas. But this is not enough. The protection of these areas and their very existence are subject to the whim of administrators. They could be disestablished, as they were established, by administrative order. The time has come when protection of these areas in their natural state is so much in the public interest that Congress should formally recognize their worth and provide means for their preservation without impairment. The Wilderness Act protects mining interests: Mindful of the importance of the mining industry and of the Nation's developing needs for new elements such as beryllium, niobium, and many others, we believe that the Senate's act, S. 174, adequately protects the potentialities of mineral extraction should the time ever come when the national interest required use of resources in the wilderness areas in addition to the vast resources already available outside the wilderness areas. The act, in fact, permits in all of these areas a multiplicity of uses that are compatible with wilderness preservation. The present act is the result of careful consideration and study: It is the result of 5 years of careful study, several congressional hearings, and many amendments to meet the reasonable recommendations of administrative agencies, of economic groups that might be affected by the bill, and of responsible civic organizations who have studied these matters. The Wilderness Act as passed by a conclusive 78-to-8 vote in the Senate is the product of intensive and balanced consideration of the many factors and interests involved. It deserves passage without the time-consuming task of beginning all over again and without the serious possibilities of loss of precious areas in the meantime. Accordingly the Federation of Western Outdoor Clubs respectfully urges that the present Wilderness Act, S. 174, be reported favorably for passage by the House. Thank you for the opportunity to present our views. Mrs. PrOST. Thank you, Mr. Clark. Are there questions of Mr. Clark? Thank you again. Mr. CLARK. Thank you. Mrs. ProST. The Chair has been advised that the Honorable William E. Warne, director of natural resources of the State of California, is in the room. We would at least like to have you stand. If you care to make a statement, Mr. Warne, we would be happy to have you do so. STATEMENT OF WILLIAM E. WARNE, ADMINISTRATOR, THE RESOURCES AGENCY OF CALIFORNIA Mr. WARNE. Thank you, Madam Chairman. As administrator of the Resources Agency of California, I appear before you today at the behest of Gov. Edmund G. Brown, to present a statement reflecting the position of this agency and its component organizations. The Resources Agency of California was established on October 1 of this year by Governor Brown under authority given him by the State legislature. Within this agency, by law and by executive order, are departments, boards, commissions, and committees which are concerned with water, forests, fish and wildlife, mining, oil and gas, soil conservation, boating, parks and recreation, and agriculture. The Resources Agency of California supports the principles of the Wilderness Act and urges passage of Senate bill 174. Your committee has or will receive testimony and/or written statements from the board of forestry and the State mining board reflecting reservations of this support. Similarly, the State park commission will submit to you an individual action further supporting this agency endorsement. Governor Brown himself just last week set the tone for this support of the principles of the Wilderness Act which we are expressing, in a letter to a newspaperman, Dick Hyland. I wish to quote a portion of that letter as it appears in the November 3 issue of the newspaper Western Outdoor News. Governor Brown stated: As Governor of California, I am deeply aware of the interests of our multitude of citizens who look upon the beauties of our mountains and streams as resources worthy of our best attention today and preservation for our children and our children's children. I hope I have been useful in promoting programs in my administration that will safeguard and preserve these things for all time Governor Brown concluded. Recognition by the wilderness bill of the benefits of an enduring resource of wilderness for the American people of present and future generations is of particular significance in California. As the subcommittee is well aware, California possesses some of the finest wilderness country in the Nation and also sustains some of the heaviest public outdoor recreational activity. While the wilderness bill will provide reasonable protection for wilderness lands where continued recreational opportunities will be assured, it is most significant to those of us charged with developing and utilizing natural resources of high economic and social value, such as water, minerals, and timber that much of the planning that led to the wording of the bill as it was passed by the Senate, was directed toward protecting and stabilizing the vital industries that depend upon utilization of these resources. This is as it should be. To give the committee some perspective as to the effects of the wilderness bill upon California, I would like to put a few figures in the record. There are approximately 100 million acres of land in California. Adoption of the bill before you would mean that within the next 14 years, 5,778,434 acres, or less than 6 percent of California, might be designated as within the wilderness system. Of this acreage, it is significant that at the present time, between 75 and 80 percent of this land is already permanently withdrawn from resources exploitation with 463,658 acres presently designated as national forest wilderness areas and 4,026,457 acres contained in existing national parks. The additional lands which would be affected specifically under the wilderness bill would be 1,094,164 acres of national forest primitive areas and 194,155 acres of national wildlife refuge and game areas which are not now permanently withdrawn from resources exploita tion. From these figures then we see that approximately 1.2 percent of California's land areas would be given new status under the wilderness bill for the benefit of all the people. We believe that there is adequate provision within the bill for congressional review and specific affirmative action necessary before additional lands could be included in the wilderness system. We are not interested in "locking up" forever water, minerals or timber which someday may be needed in the national interest. We believe, however, that the bill provides suitable means and authority for the various secretaries to employ such actions as land exchanges, or |