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Testimony by Bonnie Phillips 

 July 23. 1996 



psychologically and sod<dly. The land has been hurt by the rider, the Forest 

 Service has once again lost their way through the mixed signals sent by this 

 Congress, and the conuhunities again face great uncertainty. 



The confusion wrought on all fronts has led to another breakdown of the 

 agency, and any trust that had been tenuously built up since the Record of 

 Decision for the Plan was signed has been torn apart. 



Since the timber rider contained three components-Section 318 sales. 

 Option 9 (or Clinton Forest Plan) sales, and Salvage Sales, I will give examples 

 of^how each component is negatively affecting the implementation of the Plan, 

 and hurting the forest ecosystem. 



1. Section 318 Sales . The Section 318 old growth sales have had the most 

 dramatic effect on the land, and on the community in the Pacific Northwest. 

 The old growth which has been or will be logged in Washington State and 

 Oregon \mder this part of the rider was assumed to be protected under the 

 Clinton Plan, and scientists who gave viability ratings for various threatened emd 

 endangered species took this protection into account. Furthermore, renewed 

 logging of ola growth, without the riparian buffer and other protections and 

 mitigations under the Clinton Plan, have angered people throughout the Pacific 

 Normwest and the Uruted States, and protests in ana polarizations of 

 communities have increased well beyond the worst tensions of the late 1980's. 



In addition, the concern for loss of the marbled murrelet old growth 

 habitat severely restricted the effort to work cooperatively on the Plan. Because 

 of my Audubon Chapters' concern that inadequate information was avcdlable on 

 many of these murrelet sales, we, along with many other groups, instituted a 

 program to train citizens to survey for marbled murrelets. Tliis costly and time- 

 mtensive program was a necessary insurance policy, which we took out and 

 committee! to before we knew how the Ninth Circuit Court would rule. While 

 waiting for the court ruling, middle class, mainstream citizens such as myself 

 were searching our consciences to see whetlier we would be willing to be 

 arrested for our beliefs should these sales be logged and the marbled murrelet 

 head towcird extinction. We heard from so many people—bankers, businessmen, 

 lawyers, architects, teachers, doctors-seniors and youth-that we began holding 

 dvil disobedience training and discussing our plans with federal, state, county 

 and dty law enforcement officers should the need arrive. This was a very 

 difficult decision for us to make, but the loss of our democratic rights and the 

 egregious violations to the land caused us to discuss this unprecedented action. 



We did not blame the Forest Service for initiating the negative effects on 

 the land, and on the Plan, but we no longer had the same feelings and energy 

 for cooperation and neither did they. We noticed throughout the Region that 

 substantive issues were no longer being discussed at the Provincial Advisory 

 Committees, and that meetings were being held further and further apart. 



