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Stop Logging in the Sequoias 



As the volunteer director of the Public Forestry Foundation, a not-for-profit coalition of 

 resource professionals and citizens dedicated to promoting socially responsible forestry, I 

 urge Congress to act swiftly to help a misguided agency to care for one of America's most 

 sacred places. Out of 28 other National Forests our Foundation has worked in, the SNF is 

 the only one we are petitioning Congress to stop all commercial logging in. As I tell this 

 committee why there should be no more commercial logging in the Sequoia National 

 Forest, bear in mind that I still make my living in the woods, often managing logging 

 operations. My family is supported by timber dollars and I am not against prudent public 

 logging. Here, then, are some of my many reasons why we should stop commercial 

 logging in the SNF by supporting H.R. 2153: 



• Logging in the SNF is costing American taxpayers 



millions of dollars each year. 



Gifford Pinchot, the first Forest Service Qiief said that prudent logging should pay for 

 itself. As a private forester I can verify that true "conmiercial" logging always returns a 

 profit to the forest owner. Commercial logging in the SNF has caused some of the highest 

 average deficit returns of any Pacific National Forest In 1993, only 4 bidders bid sales, 

 resulting in 94% of the stimipage going to two companies. These small companies 

 combined made minimal, almost immeasurable, returns to regional economies. Why, I 

 ask, are we continuing to log the Sequoia Forest at a loss? 



• Poor Logging Practices 



Logging, particularly over the last 25 years, in the Sequoia National Forest is some of the 

 roughest I've seen. There has been little visible effort to minimize heavy machinery 

 impacts on dry hillsides or moist streamsides. Massive soU disturbance and compaction, 

 riparian degradation, and log wastage and breakage are often far out of proportion to the net 

 volumes of timber removed and paid for. Qearcutting (in any form) and slash burning 

 have converted many fc»«sted sites bade to chaparral or desert A quarter of a century of 

 emphasis on getting the cut out is, in my expert opinion, best diaracterized as heavy- 

 handed highgrading. 



• Current commercial logging practices in the SNF are not biologically 

 sustainable or economically renewable. 



When PFFs diief forester reviewed die forest inventory, harvest levels and rotations 

 suggested by the Sequoia Forest Plan, he calculated that the SNF is being oveicut 



