249 



Statement of Jim Owens 



Forests, Family Farms, and Energy Subcommittee 



September 10, 1992 



Page 4 



H.R. 2866 for acquisition by the Six Rivers National Forest, are found 

 in what scientists call the Klamath Province, a distinct bioregion which 

 encompasses northwestern California and southwestern Oregon. 



The forests of the Klamath Province are ecologically diverse and 

 unique and contain more than 20 spedes of conifers, including coast 

 redwoods. Scientists believe that these forests were central to the 

 evolution of forests in the Western United States following the last ice 

 age, when the region was a refugia for mar\y of the tree spedes 

 eliminated by ice sheets elsewhere. 



In addition to the northern spotted owl and the marbled 

 murrelet, these coniferous forests comprise critical habitat for hundreds 

 of vertebrate spedes, rare plants and thousands of little-studied 

 invertebrates. The andent forests of this region contain more biomass 

 than any other on Earth and as such store more carbon than any other 

 terrestrial ecosystem. 



A primary attribute of these forests is high quality water. 

 Undisturbed forests of this type function like a sponge, intercepting 

 predpitation, absorbing it and regulating its release while preventing 

 the overland flow of water and erosion. The waters of this region's 

 andent forests historically supported abundant runs of anadromous 



