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STATEMENT OF ROBERT E. LINDEKUGEL, CONSERVATION 

 DIRECTOR, SOUTHEAST ALASKA CONSERVATION COUNCIL 



Mr. LiNDEKUGEL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If ever passed, H.R. 

 2413 would be the end of our hundred-year tradition of pubHc own- 

 ership and management of forest land. Thanks to Senator Robin 

 Taylor, we have confirmed the real intent of your bill. It is not 

 about a simple transfer to the State of Alaska. The real goal of this 

 bill is to turn these public lands over to private hands. 



In a letter written to the Montana State senator, Taylor declared 

 his goal for State management of the Tongass. He wrote, "Hope- 

 fully, a large portion of this acreage will eventually be conveyed to 

 the private sector." This sentence tells us exactly where you want 

 to head with this bill. 



H.R. 2413 would hand over more than 200,000 acres of prime 

 public forest lands to five new, for-profit Native corporations. It is 

 beyond belief that at the same time you are holding these hearings, 

 you are trying to ram this public land giveaway through Congress 

 in an amendment to the Presidio Bill currently in Conference Com- 

 mittee. On top of this outlandish giveaway of public forest re- 

 sources, your Presidio amendment uses these Native claims to 

 achieve a primary legislative objective of the Alaska delegation — 

 to delay the completion of the Tongass Land management Plan 

 until 1997. 



According to two letters, the experts at the Institute of Social 

 and Economic Research at the University of Alaska who wrote the 

 report on the communities being studies, found — well, concluded 

 that they did not make a finding that Congress had inadvertently 

 left these villages off the list, did not recommend that Congress 

 now award them land. 



This provision in your transfer bill has less to do with Native 

 claims than it does with guaranteeing that vast areas of the 

 Tongass presently off limits to clearcutting will be taken from pub- 

 lic ownership and clearcut without public scrutiny. 



You claim that this bill is about control and stability. We strong- 

 ly disagree. Your bill ends up cutting 15 years of conservation work 

 in Alaska. 



On the last page of your bill, second-to-the-last page of your bill, 

 you take your double-barreled shotgun, load it up with buckshot, 

 and blast away at every single protected acre on this forest: the 

 wilderness, the legislated LUD lis, and salmon buffer strips. 



This single provision wrecks any sense of stability for people, 

 communities and industries that depend upon the Tongass. 



You have also stated that no one could construe this bill as a 

 Federal mandate. Your bill is loaded with Federal mandates and 

 conditions, including restatement of Alaska Pulp's contract and 

 special treatment for Ketchikan Pulp. Your bill would only benefit 

 the corporate robber barons who have and will continue to put 

 shortsighted profits ahead of the long-term interests of local com- 

 munities here on the Tongass. You recently introduced a bill to 

 give Ketchikan Pulp a new 15-year monopoly contract that would 

 force all other users to sacrifice their interests in this great forest 

 so that Ketchikan Pulp could be guaranteed a profit. In effect, you 

 are asking the American public to take billions of dollars to stop 



