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William Croft, (+44) 61-445 1210, Individual, Giant Sequoia Preservation Act, 3 /3/94 



My name is William Croft; I am currently a senior research fellow 

 in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Manchester. I am 

 an American citizen, a native and longtime resident of California, and a 

 member of the Council of the Save-the-Redwoods League. I am 

 submitting this testimony as an individual who has spent a great deal of 

 time in the giant sequoias. 



Since 1987, 1 have visited seventeen of the thirty-one groves or parts 

 of groves in Sequoia National Forest, including all of the largest groves 

 and almost all of the groves in which logging has occurred in the past 

 decade. I have also collected data on the sequoia groves and their status 

 from various publications. National Forest and other correspondence, 

 conversations with Forest Service personnel, representatives of 

 environmental groups, and users of the sequoia groves, and also my 

 own personal observations. 



Based on the most recent estimates available to me, there are 

 approximately 15,000 acres of giant sequoias on Sequoia National 

 Forest, half of the total occurrence of these trees. In 1982, prior to 

 recent logging activity, there were 21 virgin sequoia groves making up 

 8800 acres (58% of die Forest Service total). This acreage is equal to 

 the virgin sequoia acreage in Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Park; that 

 is, half of the remaining virgin sequoia groves in 1982 were outside of 

 the National Parks. Most of the remaining sequoia acreage in Sequoia 

 National Forest, largely in the Hume Lake District north of Sequoia 

 National Park, was logged of its sequoias and other species at the turn of 

 the century. The largest and finest virgin groves remaining are south of 

 Sequoia National Park in the Tule River drainage, near Highway 190 

 and the Great Divide Highway east of Porterville. 



The sequoia groves in Sequoia National Forest are of great 

 recreational and scientific value. Their recreational value is 

 underutiUzed compared to the National Park groves. The accessible 

 sequoia groves in the National Parks are very heavily used. Grant 

 Grove and Giant Forest are developed. Many of the remaining groves 

 are inaccessible even by trail. The National Forest sequoia groves are as 

 beautiful as the Park groves and very lightly used. Almost all of them 

 are accessible by two-wheel-drive road. The Middle Tule River, where 

 the finest National Forest groves are found, flows in a spectacular gorge 

 and there is great potential for recreational development. Nor are the 

 sequoias themselves much smaller than those in the National Park. The 

 Boole Tree in Converse Basin is the eighth largest living thing, and only 

 last fall Dwight Willard found a tree that is around the same size as the 

 Boole in nearby Kennedy Grove; there may be others in these less- 

 explored groves. The recreational value of the Sequoia National Forest 

 groves only increases with the massive growth of population in 

 California and the United States in general. I have found these groves to 



