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J. Neil Fembau^ 

 P.O. Box 3086 



Visalia. Ca. 93278 



(209) 625-3205 



U. S. House of Representatives 

 /Vgriculture Cotnmiltee. 

 Subcommittee on .Specialty Crops 



and Natural Resources 

 Washington, U.C. 



Dear .Subcommittee Members: 



Please accept my testimony in favor of Congressman George Brown's H. R. 2153, 

 Cianl Sequoia Preservation Act. 



If these hearings arc to be of any use to you, I think ifs important that you have a variety of 

 perspectives. My personal involvement in these proceedings begins with childhood visits to the 

 Giant Sequoia in both the Sequoia National Forest and Sequoia National Park, and spans almost 

 a half century of persoiul experience. I am not a scientist, but I am a witness. Since childhood 

 I have \isited somewhere between a third and a half of the existing Groves of Giant Sequoia. 

 Some of these Groves are at least a day's hike from the nearest road, others, thanks to Forest 

 Service mismanagement, are on badly eroded timber harvest highways. 



.A^ a child 1 sat in my family's 47 Dodge near the Kings Canyon Grove of Sequoia while 

 hundreds of deer paraded past our car. blocking the General's Highway during their migratioiL 

 Nowhere in the forest now can you find such huge numbers of deer. The forest has not been 

 managed for the hunter or for the young amateur naturahst I once was. 'V^liere my father would 

 have found plenty, today's hunter finds almo.st nothing. 



As a young adull I delighted in discovering the farthest reaches of Sequoia in places like the 

 Redwood Meadow Grove a day's hike over Timber Gap north of Mineral King, and a dav's 

 hike Irom the nearest road. In my mid-forties I became the Chair of ihe Kem-Kaweah Chapter of 

 the Sierra Club, and it fell to me to initiate the original lawsuits against the Sequoia Forest that 

 have cuhniiiated in Congressman Brown's legislation. In the early 1980s a number of local cabin 

 owners, nearby residents, and visitors to Sequoia Forest came to the Sierra Club complaining of 

 Forest mismanagement. Tliey documented abuse atter abuse, brought us pictures, and tinally 

 convinced us to look at failed timber plantations, silled up and eroded streams, and bulldozed 

 Sequoias. 



Most of us lud no idea any such harvests had been going on. We had known that timber 

 harvest had been a part of the I'orest Service program, but we had no idea of either the 



