349 



As you heard, there is disagreement over job numbers. When including Forest Service employees, 

 Mr. Finney estimates 3500 Tongass forest products jobs. Direct Tongass timber jobs, according 

 to Mr. Finney, is 2700. However, the most recent reliable information, found in the USFS Timber 

 Supply and Demand Report for 1988, shows 2031 direct Tongass timber jobs. Based on the Forest 

 Service's estimates of the ratio of jobs to board foot sale quantity, there would have been 2200 

 direct Tongass timber jobs in 1989. But whatever the job numbers are, H.R. 987 would not 

 impact the existing number of Tongass-dependent jobs . 



If parts of the Tongass are to be managed as tree farms to provide jobs, then it should be done 

 right. SEACC supports intensive management (eg. thinning of second growth stands and funding 

 for logging of the marginal timber stands that make up the majority of the Tongass commercial 

 forest) and value-added processing --we could have more Tongass timber jobs with the same 

 amount or less timber than is being harvested now. 



CLARIFICATIONS 



Forest Service Associate Deputy Chief George Leonard mistakenly said that "fish enhancement is 

 not permitted in Wilderness." 



ANILCA Section 1315(b) specifically provides for fish enhancement activities in Wilderness. (Fish 

 enhancement is also allowed in LUD lis, for that matter.) 



The Forest Service slated that H.R. 987 would remove 250.000 acres scheduled for harvest over the 

 next 100 years. 



Using the Forest Service's own figures, SEACC calculates that H.R. 987 would remove only 50,000 

 acres of scheduled-for-harvest that is the kind of timber the pulp mills have relied upon in the 

 past (30,000+ board feet/acre). This is hardly a major crippling of the scheduled timber supply - 

 - also, more timber volume can be made available and scheduled via the TLMP Revision. 



Can't we wail and make a decision on lands later -- or is the fight irrespective of any new 

 information? 



We can't wait — the very best and most threatened fish and wildlife watersheds, such as Nutkwa, 

 Kadashan, Lisianski, and Calder-Holbrook, would still be logged if left up to the Forest Service. 

 Located in the 50-year contract areas, these watersheds have the high-volume timber historically 

 targeted by the pulp mills and they are listed in their life-of-the-sale operating schedules. 



New information isn't going to change the importance of these areas to the non-timber 

 communities and businesses already using them as the basis for their livelihoods. The fight is over 

 key areas -- specific river valleys and lower mountainsides. The areas in H.R. 987 and S. 346 

 were chosen because of their economic importance in their current old-growth state. The highest 

 and best use of these areas is preserving them in their natural state. If anything, accurate new 

 information is likely to maintain or intensify the controversy. For instance, the Alaska Department 

 of Fish and Game believes that the wildlife declines predicted in the Revision's recent 

 Management Analysis would have been 100% greater if the wildlife habitat models had been 

 properly used by the Forest Service. 



Senator Murkowski said there have been no field hearings on Wilderness. 



We ask you to keep in mind that permanent lands protection (either by Wilderness or some other 

 name) and mandatory buffers were major topics of the April 1989 Senate field hearings in 

 Ketchikan and Sitka. We think an examination of that hearing record is clear -- Alaskans support 

 legislated protection of key areas. (See Attachment (F)) 



29-591 - 90 - 12 



