other forest areas 3,538,600, or 76.2 percent of total; the total being 4,648,000.

National totals, campgrounds 9,995,800, or 17.2 percent of total; picnic areas, 19,283,300, or 23.7 percent of total; winter sports sites, 4,184,100, or 5.1 percent of total; F.S.-owned organization camps, 118,300, or 0.1 percent of total; privately owned organization camp, 611,800, or 0.8 percent of total; F.S. hotels or resorts, 1,909,600, or 2.3 percent of total; private hotels or resorts, 2,687,800, or 1.1 percent of total; wilderness areas 564,700, or 0.7 percent of total; other forest areas, 41,309,300, or 50.7 percent of total; the total being 81,521,000. National forest visits average 114 person-days per visit; wilderness visits, as a part thereof, equal 314 person-days per visit. The 3,288,450 Washington national forest visits represent 4,110,560 person-days, or 9.1 percent of the Washington tourists, while the 13,800 Washington national forest wilderness visits equal 44,850 person-days, or 0.9 percent of Washington's tourist visits.

There is considerable debate about wilderness travel costs; however, if it costs $10 per wilderness person-day in Washington, only $448,500, or approximately 0.1 percent of Washington's $425 million total travel dollars, come from Washington's national forest wilderness. If wilderness travel is less expensive, as advocated by its supporters, its contribution to tourism as an industry would be much less.

There is a great deal of argument over who uses wilderness. A 1960 University of Minnesota survey, in cooperation with the Department of Agriculture, shows that, among persons 17 years old and older, wilderness users of the canoe country were grouped as follows:

User education: Sixty-five percent had college training; 22 percent graduate college training; users average 15 years of education. User occupation: Proprietors, managers, and officials, 50 percent; labor force, 18 percent; clerical, 13 percent; other, 19 percent.

User income: Average income of wilderness user was $7,500 per year-25 percent greater than $11,000 per year; 25 percent, $8,000 to $11,000 per year; 25 percent, $6,000 to $8,000 per year; 25 percent, $4,000 to $6,000 per year.

It is quite apparent from these figures that the average American tourist is not the wilderness user. Do we provide the mass average American recreationist his proportionate slice of our national forests for what roadside family uses he can afford? No; our mass recreational facilities are overrun and inadequate. We need to provide access roads for the motoring recreationist to reach areas more suitable for roadside recreation, then wilderness use itself will expand along with other resource utilization and protection.

The following Department of Agriculture research case is cited as an example; balanced resource use and revolving dollar income were the target objectives. The area used in this example contains 64,000 acres and is in a restricted wilderness category.

Present conditions under wilderness classification: 10,000 visits per year; $7 per user day; 211⁄2 user days per visit, equals $175,000 per year revolving resource value.

Predicted conditions if development were allowed to occur: 100,000 roadside visits per year at 111⁄2 user days per visit; 50,000 back country visits per year at 2 user days per visit (increase in back country visits

is due to better access), equals 250,000 user-days valued at $1,750,000, or 10 times the present annual recreational value.

An additional $2 million can be produced from other available resources annually to bolster the local economy.

S. 174 in its present form is not sound public land management legislation. It is not in the best interest of the America recreationist or the economic health of many Northwest communities—both depend on public lands for growth.

It strangles further development of mass recreational facilities in superb scenic areas and precludes other resource management. It prohibits professional land managers from adjusting land uses as public uses and needs change.

Thank you very much.

Mrs. ProST. Thank you. [Applause.]

Our next witness is Mr. Bruce Bowler of Boise, Idaho.
You may proceed, Mr. Bowler.

STATEMENT OF BRUCE BOWLER, BOISE, IDAHO

Mr. BOWLER. Madam Chairman, Congressman Olsen, I am Bruce Bowler of Boise, Idaho, making this statement as a citizen interested in the public welfare concerning the subjects under consideration.

This opportunity to be heard by the subcommittee in Idaho is greatly appreciated. Important foresight has been demonstrated by the Senate in passing S. 174, and the people of the United States who own the land included within the wilderness areas proposed are entitled to determinations of the issues on national rather than local welfare. However, even the local welfare will best be served by passage of this wilderness bill by Congress.

I think one of the things that could best be said at this point is that in all of the discussion that I have heard here today, I have not noticed one instance of making a point of the fact that S. 174 actually ups the power of Congress over administrative operation. I think it is one of the most significant things that we have in S. 174, that now if S. 174 becomes law, there would be checks upon the administration of these public lands. And this administration, while it has been competent through the Forest Service over the years and other public land management agencies, I cannot understand how the opposition can take the position that the wilderness bill will not be a fine thing from practically all standpoints. This is no new frontier. It does not embrace anything particularly new like the beginning of a great era that commenced the century that Idaho is now closing.

The approximate 5 percent of Idaho that still has a potential for living wilderness is the highest and best use for these public lands. The future economy of Idaho and the Northwest would prosper more in the long term from administration of the subject public lands for wilderness use, than by permitting conventional commercial utilization of the relatively small amounts of timber, grazing, and possible minerals.

True wilderness has unique values that are incompatible with motor roads, but high quality, and inexpensive uses from trails would make available the areas to people. The areas involved are not much unlike the other 20 million acres in Idaho under Forest Service adminis

tration where motorized traffic is now permitted. The fact that it is still wilderness without roads is the principal unique characteristic that we now, perhaps for the last time, have opportunity to preserve. Those opposing the wildnerness bill often state that some wilderness is desirable, hence the issues form on where and how much, a question of degree only.

Good wilderness, which we still have opportunity to preserve a little of in Idaho, must be of sufficient size to constitute a fair ecological unit, and this is particularly true where large populations of large game animals such as bighorn sheep and mountain goat require a wilderness environment to prosper.

These things require some of the better environment of valley floors of the large main rivers, which traditionally have been the routes the motor roads first penetrate. Idaho is indeed fortunate to have sections of the Salmon River, and of the Selway River that do not have motor roads on their main courses.

These parts of the Salmon and Selway Rivers are involved in the proposed wilderness areas that would get Federal statutory protection under the wilderness bill. The proponents of the bill want to save for future generations the opportunity to know the fine beauties and culture of such a wilderness. The opposition want to have it available to harvest forest products, mine for minerals, and grazing for domestic livestock, and what might be left over can be for wilderness.

No substantial Idaho economy, and much less the Nation, can rest upon such utilization of this approximate 5 percent of Idaho. This is no new frontier for substantial industrial development, but rather is a little bit of Idaho that yet has a chance to become world famous from the foresight that would retain a bit of wilderness lands for the future.

The idea expressed that enough wilderness can be saved in the form of several mountain peaks, after all of the usable timber is cut, and the minerals removed, is not good husbandry of an environment like the wilderness areas already administratively so designated by the Forest Service. Real wisdom has been shown by the Forest Service in setting aside the areas involved for wilderness use, and the wilderness bill properly makes possible Federal statutory confirmation of this fine public service policy of the Department of Agriculture.

Changing times require reevaluation of the public interest being served from economy produced from private enterprise use of the properties belonging to all the people of this Nation. I feel sure that proper reevaluation will show that local economy produced from logging, mining, and grazing on the proposed wilderness areas will not begin to equal that which will eventually result from perpetual wilderness use.

Pioneer days were different, of course. Idaho on the eve of her centennial anniversary has come far in a hundred years. The New Frontier is not in doing the same things to the resources of our last 3 million acres of wilderness, but to see the greater values that will result from its unspoiled availability to the world, rather than make it like our other 95 percent which no longer has any unique character of wilderness.

Much of this latter contains so much outdoor recreational facility available to motor road, that it leaves without reason the arguments

that the wilderness should also be penetrated with motor roads. The proposed wilderness system merely rounds out the good recreational assets Idaho is blessed with.

Idaho's great place in the future economic scene of this Nation will result from the built-in assets for outdoor recreation on the public lands within its boundaries containing our forest, field, and stream equalities. We should not depreciate this potential by overlooking the opportunity to save this wilderness.

To compare the other side of the economy which could be contemplated from mining, logging, and grazing the 5 percent wilderness, we should focus on what these users of the people's lands pay for the raw products they take. The miners pay nothing to the Government for the minerals they take from the peoples' land. The forest products users pay approximately $5 to $50 per thousand boardfeet for trees they take from the peoples' land depending upon the type of timber and its location.

A prime beautiful yellow pine tree on a mountain overlooking the middle Selway River would likely bring the people who own it not more than $35. Such a tree left in its wilderness environment even to its natural death is many times over more valuable when it is realized that the surrounding wilderness must be lost to convert it. The people who own it should like better it stand. The livestock grazers pay for the feed eaten from the peoples' lands approximately 20 cents per grazing month for a cow and 10 cents for a sheep.

Wilderness managed lands deserve more than these bits of compensation from the private users. The struggle of the private user to retain these advantages is understandable, but it is not fair for them to insist for the last little bit of yet saved wilderness as we start Idaho's second century, whose new frontier is people needing the recreational cultural advantages of wilderness.

Mining, employing only 1 percent of Idaho's population, lumbering, and grazing do not hold the key to Idaho's future in the centuries beyond its first, and while historically important, the time is at hand to make reevaluation with concern for future centuries. We are only trustees for such natural assets as the bits of wilderness remaining in this Nation. The wilderness sought to be set aside was well prospected for minerals in the first three quarters of Idaho's first century.

It has been estimated that the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness contains 4 billion board-feet of commercial timber. For this the forest products users would expect to pay about $5 per thousand board-feet. Twenty million dollars the people would receive for their trees in this wilderness, and the Government would be expected to build much of the motor roads required to take out the logs. The dollar value of these trees left in uspoiled wilderness projected over the centuries would measure in billions of produced economy, to which great values not measurable in dollars must be added for cultural welfare of people. We have a chance today to decide what is the better way to administer our trust for the owners of the properties, present and future.

The pattern of history should show that Congress, with the support of Idaho, had the wisdom to recognize that Idaho's first century commenced with the wilderness being frontier, and ended with saving a little for heritage before it became too late.

Another point that I would like to make is the fire protection feature.

Modern methods of aerial fire protection and insect control in forested areas coupled with traditional trails leaves without merit the argument that motor roads are necessary for these purposes.

The good public service agency of the Forest Service has amply demonstrated their capabilities of managing wilderness areas as such, and the commercial users are not necessary for a good job to be done. The concept of multiple use should not be that all of our public lands should be available for all kinds of uses, and good management is being accomplished without the use of motor roads in the wilderness. It is not waste to require that some of our timber and grass have a full span of life without being subject to the logger's saw or the steer's crop. We should not be confused by the claims of lockup; the real losses to the people occur when local commercial enterprise is permitted to take for individual gain wonderfully unique, perpetual, natural assets that truly belong to all the people of this Nation.

The philosophy of wilderness in this age is a trust we cannot honestly forsake. [Applause.]

Mrs. Prost. Thank you, Mr. Bowler.

Our next witness is Mr. I. H. Harris, president, Idaho State Chamber of Commerce.

You may proceed, Mr. Harris.

STATEMENT OF I. H. HARRIS, PRESIDENT, IDAHO STATE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, BOISE, IDAHO

Mr. HARRIS. Madam Chairman and members of the committee, my name is I. H. Harris, and I am president of the Idaho State Chamber of Commerce and I am from Burley, Idaho.

I also represent the Burley Chamber of Commerce and I hope you folks will be patient in listening to public enemy No. 1.

I wish to present the information which I have already presented for the record and request that a representative of the Idaho State Chamber of Commerce be granted permission to testify at greater length in any subsequent hearing.

The statement as presented by the Idaho State Chamber of Commerce is as follows:

This statement is presented on behalf of the Idaho State Chamber of Commerce in opposition to S. 174, the wilderness system bill.

It should be stated specifically at the outset that this organization does not oppose the classification of certain lands as wilderness area, after it has been determined that such a classification represents the highest and best use for these lands. We respectfully submit that the proposed legislation violates this principle in favor of indiscriminate set-asides for single use.

This organization further contends that S. 174 is not based on justifiable need; that it is premature; that it stifles multiple-use development of our natural resources, and that it strikes directly at the economy of those States, Idaho in particular, that must rely upon full and sound utilization of their natural resources for the production of useful wealth.

S. 174 is concerned primarily with one aspect of recreation, but this proposal makes no allowance for any recommendation which may be contained in the pending report of the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission. The Commission has as its purpose a full review of all aspects of outdoor recreation. Neither does S. 174, as it was passed by the U.S. Senate, make any allowance for the vast majority of those who must rely upon the family car for transportation to recreation areas for camping, hunting, and fishing.

According to official estimates, approximately 68.4 million persons visited national forest areas in 1959. Of this total, about 550,000 or less than 1 percent-visited the 14.7 million acres now classified as wilderness.