287 



The Chairman. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 



Mr. Lindh, the Forest Service's recently released analysis of the 

 management situation suggests that as long as minimum manage- 

 ment standards are met, the level of timber harvest does not 

 impact fisheries. Do you agree with that conclusion? 



Mr. Lindh. I understand how they arrive at that conclusion. 

 Maybe I better let Mr. Anderson respond to that. 



I think it can be said that there have been some recent problems 

 identified. Last summer the state biologist visited some active 

 timber sales on Prince of Wales Island and found that some of the 

 buffer strips and some of the leave areas, wildlife retention areas, 

 had been entered. I am not sure if it was always with the concur- 

 rence of the Forest Service. 



The Chairman. Dr. Anderson is? 



Mr. Lindh. He is with the Department of Fish and Game. He is 

 the Regional Supervisor for the Division of Wildlife Conservation. 



The Chairman. Would you answer that question briefly, please. 



Dr. Anderson. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 



As Craig pointed out, I am supervising all wildlife research and 

 management in southeast Alaska, which is basically synonymous 

 with the Tongass. 



In response directly to your question, it appears not only in the 

 60-page pre-AMS, but based on our relatively cursory review of the 

 technical AMS as well, fisheries outputs appear to be constant at 

 about 130 million pounds, I believe, annually across all 24 bench- 

 marks. 



My understanding of how that was arrived at, although the as- 

 sumptions underlying that process are not spelled out in the 60- 

 page document, we were told by the inter-disciplinary plan revision 

 team the assumption underlying those outputs 



The Chairman. Just tell me, do you agree or disagree with the 

 statement? 



Dr. Anderson. We would have to agree with it based on the as- 

 sumption, if the assumption had been made clear, which is that all 

 conceivable fisheries enhancement projects would be carried out by 

 the Forest Service in order to maintain those outputs at those 

 levels. 



The Chairman. Well, are you suggesting that the Forest Service 

 should have discretion as to how to manage the buffer zones, or 

 that those should be spelled out in the legislation? 



Dr. Anderson. I think that I would not favor Forest Service dis- 

 cretion on that point. One of the primary reasons I think that has 

 been alluded to previously and is documented in internal memo- 

 randa and also external memoranda from our Commissioner, on a 

 field trip that was conducted by our habitat division on Prince of 

 Wales Island within the last year, it revealed a number of cases 

 where there were very obvious violations of existing policies or reg- 

 ulations relative to that issue. 



The Chairman. So let me see if I can get this. In effect, you are 

 saying that, yes, if minimum management standards are met, that 

 fisheries would not be impacted, but that in effect the Forest Serv- 

 ice is not following their minimum management standards and 

 therefore we should spell out, at least with respect to buffer zones, 



