58 



STATEMENT OF CARLYLE PRESTON, NAUKATI 



Mr. Preston. My name is Carlyle Preston. I live in Naukati, 

 Alaska. I have been an Alaskan resident for the past 26 years, the 

 last 23 of these years of which I have lived and work in the 

 Tongass. I support Congressman Young's Tongass Transfer and 

 Transition Act, H.R. 2413. 



In my 23 years working in the Tongass, I have seen many 

 changes. I have seen a number of logging companies working in the 

 Tongass cut more than in half and the number of men working cut 

 by more than 60 percent. Never have I seen the work force for log- 

 ging in the Tongass increase. I have seen units released by the For- 

 est Service ready to be cut be put on hold for months, years, and 

 some forever due to injunctions started by environmentalists, usu- 

 ally from out of State. It does not seem right to me to have some- 

 one from New York, California, Florida, or Arkansas, who has 

 probably never been to Alaska, never seen the Tongass, to dictate 

 policy how this forest is to be run. The policy should be dictated 

 by Alaskans, people who live and work in the Tongass, not by 

 someone who has never been off concrete and cannot tell the dif- 

 ference between an Alaskan yellow cedar tree and a Sitka spruce 

 tree. Thank you. 



The Chairman. Thank you. 



And Ron, you are the last one. 



STATEMENT OF RON QUICK, NAUKATI 



Mr. Quick. Congressman Young, my name is Ron Quick. I live 

 in Naukati on Prince of Wales Island. I have been in the industry 

 40 years. In fact, I worked with Ms. Gerrits' father in the late 

 1950's. 



I am in favor of the Tongass Transfer Bill, H.R. 2413, you have 

 introduced into the House of Representatives. Over the past three 

 years, it has been so frustrating to me as a timber worker, it is un- 

 believable. It is hard to understand how the Forest Service can say 

 there is not enough timber for a sustainable timber supply when 

 you can fly around in this country all day and all you see is trees. 

 All the timber workers in Southeast are beginning to understand, 

 now, that the Forest Service does not consist of timber people. They 

 are nothing but a bunch of ecospecialists who call themselves tim- 

 ber people. 



These so-called ecospecialists have been taught that all logging 

 is bad for the environment. As Forest Service employees, they have 

 no interest as far as developing a permanent timber supply in 

 Southeast Alaska. 



Under the current Democratic Administration, there is little hope 

 for timber workers in Southeast as long as the Forest Service is 

 under Bill Clinton's and Al Gore's thumb. 



It is time to give Southeast back to the people who developed this 

 country, like the fishermen, and the loggers. We want our forest 

 back so we can run it responsibly and economically. Let us put the 

 Forest Service watching all the parks the government has created 

 and hope they can do that responsibly. Give us back our forests so 

 we can go to work logging timber that is economically feasible. Give 

 us back our forests so we can go to work not wondering if we are 

 going to have a job the next day. Give us back our forests so we 



