no 



benefit of resoiirce use and stable wildlife populations, then by nature with its often 

 destructive catastrophes. 



I became proud that my husband was helping to supply afifordable wood products for our 

 coimtry while keepnng our forests safe for tny children and their childreiL I am still proud 

 that my husband is a logger, but for the last five years I have worked almost as hard at 

 keeping logging alive as my husband has at actually logging. 



I hopye that as you came to our area, you were able to witness the extraordinary beauty of 

 the Black Hills. This is a forest that has been logged for one hundred (100) years without 

 one plant or animal extinction attributed to the harvest of timber. Pictures taken during 

 General Custer's expedition show that our forest has grown substantially in size and 

 increased in health during those years, even though five billion (5,000,000,000) board feet 

 of timber have been removed to meet the needs of American citizens. The Black Hilk 

 National Forest, to me, should be the showcase of the natioa 



In the last few years, small but very vocal groups of people, whom I term "radical 

 environmentalists" or "preservationists", have brought so much pressure to bear upon the 

 Forest Service, both locally and nationally, that this agency, as well as other agencies within 

 our government, is unfortunately changing to reflect some of these pressures. I believe fliat 

 some of these preservationists are sincere but shortsighted individuals who have lost the 

 coimection between resources and products and who believe that a living, growing, dying 

 forest is instead a static entity that can be preserved much as in a picture postcard. I 

 believe that many are victims of what I term the 'enviroiunental industry* - a money-making 

 machine that profits most through broadcasting a 'sky is falling' hysteria. Others are a part 

 of, and beneficiaries of, the envirotunental industry itself, and I believe that still others arc 



page 4 



