54 



Throwing out the planning effort and starting over with 1 1 



new statutory objectives 



This bill expressly stops the current forest planning effort in its 

 tracks. The Tongass forest planning team has worked for two years 

 at a cost of $3.7 million. and the draft plan is due in December of this 

 year. Hearings have been held in nearly all communities across 

 Southeast Alaska, hundreds and hundreds of people have invested 

 their faith and valuable time in the forest planning process. I am 

 aware that the State of Alaska has worked thousands of man hours 

 preparing its input into the forest plan. All of this effort would be 

 wasted by the Wirth bill. 



Senator Wirth's proposal requires the Forest Service to begin a new 

 planning process that departs from the multiple use mandate 

 contained in the National Forest Management Act. His bill requires 

 the Forest Service to use the existing plan as a base line and then 

 significantly increase protection of high volume old growth timber 

 areas and other non-commodity uses. The result is a significantly 

 reduced timber base and related job loss. 



Why not let the resource professionals determine the proper balance 

 between old growth ecosystem protection and active forest 

 management? 



Circumventing the planning process with statutory land 

 designations 



In addition, for 23 designated areas totaling over 1.7 million acres, 

 this proposal prescribes, as a matter of law, management priorities 

 including old growth ecosystem protection. The result is the Forest 

 Service is forced to manage these areas as wilderness. 



A critical aspect of the National Forest planning process is to 

 determine how lands should be managed including which lands 

 should be administratively set aside from commodity uses. 



The Wirth Bill would have Congress designate those lands just before 

 the planning process is completed and the resource managers have 

 an opportunity to act, presumably because the Forest Service is not 

 to be trusted to carry out its mission. 



The Tongass plan is the very first forest plan in the nation to be 

 revised -- to circumvent the process in this way sets a very bad 

 precedent. 



