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Senator Pressler. Thank you. 

 Mr. Satrom. 



STATEMENT OF JOSEPH SATROM, NATURE CONSERVANCY, 

 SOUTH DAKOTA/NORTH DAKOTA STATE OFFICE 



Mr. Satrom. Thank you, Senator. 



I am here today representing The Nature Conservancy, an inter- 

 national organization, a nonprofit that does land conservation 

 projects throughout the United States and more recently in Cen- 

 tral and South America. The mission of The Nature Conservancy is 

 to identify sensitive, rare, endangered plants and animals and nat- 

 ural communities and to seek methods of protection and conserva- 

 tion for those species and communities and ecosystems. 



In South Dakota, The Conservancy has ten preserves involving a 

 little over 11,000 acres. We have over 1,050 members and approxi- 

 mately 25 corporate associates in the State. Nationally, we have 

 707,000 members and 800 corporate associates and are involved in 

 the ownership of approximately 1 million acres of land. On many 

 of those acres, we pay property taxes like all other — like most 

 other privat ^ owners. 



For the information of the Committee, I have provided a list of 

 our trustees and a list of our preserves in the State. I'd point out 

 that we do not own land in west river, SD. 



The Coixj':^rvancy, as many people know, is committed to carrying 

 out its conservation mission in a nonadversarial, nonconfronta- 

 tional, and nonlitigious manner. Our organization believes that a 

 sustainable economy is dependent on a sustainable environment 

 and vice versa. 



The Black Hills of South Dakota, it's interesting to me as a 

 North Dakotan, represent in the most dramatic proportions in the 

 two States the economic forces and the concerns and the conserva- 

 tion issues and serious environmental questions that really face us 

 all, but specifically here in South Dakota. 



The South Dakota Chapter leadership believes that far more and 

 better scientifically derived base of information needs to be collect- 

 ed on the Black Hills in terms of rare plants and animals, natural 

 communities, and ecosystems. The unfortunate fact is that we do 

 not really know what the breath of the richness and uniqueness is 

 of the Hills region. And there's a surprisingly serious lack of infor- 

 mation even for the purposes of making decisions such as forest 

 management. We need to know what is here in terms of the biodi- 

 versity, where it's located, just how sensitive, rare, and endangered 

 it is for South Dakota and for the Nation. And then we need to 

 look at policies that will protect that biodiversity to the degree nec- 

 essary to protect it for the future generations. 



Without much better data, every economic development proposal 

 is subject to the criticism that, oh, you can't or shouldn't do that 

 because of a purported or unsubstantiated impact on a particular 

 species or ecosystem. I think good data will serve everyone's long- 

 term interest. And there are several specific steps we think the 

 Congress could take that would help us deal with that biological di- 

 versity issue in the Black Hills. 



