three years, my district has seen the Forest Service evolve from a 

 producer of domestic wood fiber to an ineffective custodian of Fed- 

 eral forest lands bound by executive decisions, conflict, and court 

 orders. 



The Six Rivers National Forest, covering over one million acres 

 in my Congressional district, illustrates the unintended but serious 

 consequences of the President's flawed forest plan. Annual harvest 

 levels in the Six Rivers have been slashed from a high of 188 mil- 

 lion board feet ten years ago to just three million board feet in 

 1994. The Forest Service estimates that annual tree mortality on 

 the Six Rivers alone is 100 million board feet. Furthermore, the 

 Forest Service estimates that the forest is growing by 250 million 

 board feet every year. 



The massive reduction in harvest levels is primarily a result of 

 over 91 percent of the land base in the Six Rivers being withdrawn 

 from any timber sales or timber harvest program through Congres- 

 sional or administrative action. The remaining nine percent is 

 under administrative directive to be managed to produce old 

 growth timber. 



Mr. Chairman, I do not have to explain to this Subcommittee 

 that the administration's policies have essentially shut down an 

 important component of our regional economy on California's North 

 Coast, destroying many living wage jobs in my Congressional dis- 

 trict. Unemployment runs in the double digits. There is stable dou- 

 ble-digit unemployment, placing an incredible burden on the social 

 and economic infrastructure of one of the most rural areas of Cali- 

 fornia. 



In addition, over 30 percent of our land base in the three coun- 

 ties of the California North Coast are publicly owned, resulting in 

 a commensurate loss in the local tax base, not totally made up or 

 offset by payment in lieu of taxes. 



The change in forest practices imposed by Option 9 in the Pacific 

 Northwest, and specifically in California, endangers the health of 

 the forest, damages rural communities, places increased pressures 

 to harvest timber on private lands, that is to say, to over-harvest 

 or accelerate the harvest on private lands, and leads to a reliance 

 upon foreign imports to meet our domestic wood fiber needs. 



One of the most surprising results of the Northwest Forest Plan 

 has been the rise in timber imports. One company, one independ- 

 ent mill in Humboldt County, California, the largest county in my 

 Congressional district, is now importing logs from New Zealand, 

 with plans to import additional timber from South America and 

 Mexico. It is tragic and ironic that timber companies in my district 

 must import timber from developing nations when we live in the 

 middle of the most productive forest lands in the world. Timber 

 stands continue to be idle while salvage builds up on the forest 

 floor, awaiting the next devastating fire. 



The net result is the degradation of timber stands in our nation 

 and in nations that have little or no environmental protections. 

 Here in the United States, we know how to harvest timber in a 

 sustainable manner while providing a healthy log supply to our 

 local mills. The nations we are importing logs from simply do not 

 have comparable safeguards to protect their natural resources. 



