45 



We are not looking at what you do after a timber harvest, we are 

 looking at what you do with lands that have failed in the past: 

 What do you do with those orphan spots out there, the really tough 

 spots? They may have degraded significantly in the process. And 

 the answer is that you have to do some things that are prettv cre- 

 ative and sometimes pretty expensive, and sometimes you fail, and 

 you have got to be prepared to go back and do it again because it 

 is going to take some investment and some persistence. 



In Mr. LaRocco's district in northern Idaho, we have had two 

 marvelous projects to try to reforest Farragut State Park, and that 

 is a rock pile, if you have ever walked out there, and it is a rock 

 pile that was tramped on by several hvmdred thousand scout feet 

 over about 50 years, and it got to be in pretty tough shape. We lost 

 a pretty significant amount of that planting last summer. It was 

 hot, and it was dry, and we are just going to have to go in and do 

 it again. That is about the size of that. There are a lot of places 

 out there like that. 



I think as you look at the reforestation and restoration and reha- 

 bilitation and reinvestment challenge, you have got to realize that 

 you get past the easy ones pretty fast and you get into the stuff 

 that is going to take some additional attention and work and time. 

 But the opportunities are out there. 



One of the things that I wish you would ask the Chief and the 

 BLM is to tell you the difference between a reforestation backlog 

 £md a tree-planting opportunity because they are different. A refor- 

 estation backlog is always aimed at the timber base, and it is al- 

 ways aimed at the land that has been harvested timber. It savs 

 very little about some of those areas that have fallen out of the 

 timber base in the past, been defined out of it simply because they 

 failed at reforestation. 



There are about 218 million acres of forest that we classify as 

 noncommercial timber land. Some of it is rock ridges that won't 

 grow anything, but a lot of it is land that absolutely can be 

 reforested. It is not now in the timber base, and therefore no data 

 is collected on it by the Forest Service, and you need to understand 

 that when they give you data they are ignoring that entire land 

 base that is outside the timber base. 



So poke at that a little bit when you are asking questions. If you 

 ask a different question, you will get a different answer. 



Mr. DeFazio. Could I ask for a quick clarification here, Mr. 

 Chairman? 



Mr. VEhfTO. Yes. 



Mr. DeFazio. Are you familiar with the reforestation backlog 

 that disappeared back now? 



Mr. Sampson. Yes. 



Mr. DeFazio. Those are the kinds of lands you are talking about, 

 correct? 



Mr. Sampson. That is the kind of land. 



Mr. DeFazio. Okay. 



Mr. Sampson. My organization, well before I was there, held a 

 conference in which the industry, the State foresters, the State 

 agencies, and the Federal agencies all committed to reduce a huge 

 backlog. Industry did it with tree planting, the State agencies did 

 it with nurseries and tree planting, and the Federal agencies did 



