214 



Senator Murkowski. Thank you, Mr. Gray. 



Under the assumption that Senator Wirth's bill would cancel the 

 contracts and the pulp mills would cease to exist, what in your 

 opinion would be appropriate forest management practices to uti- 

 lize the 40 percent of the timber that is in the commercial area, 1.7 

 million acres, to utilize that wood fiber? 



Mr. Gray. Is your point what would be 



Senator Murkowski. Will you leave it there or export the chips? 

 What would we do with it? 



Mr. Gray. My understanding is that the industry is highly inter- 

 dependent between the pulp mills and the saw mills. That is why I 

 think that there would be — I am not sure what you would do. You 

 would need to provide some kind of a pulp base as far as I under- 

 stand. 



Senator Murkowski. To replace the pulp base we have? 



Mr. Gray. Yes. 



Mr. Edwards. Senator, if I may provide an answer to that? 



Senator Murkowski. I do not want to open it up to a counter be- 

 cause then we have to open it up to everybody. 



We will proceed with our next witness. Mr. David A. Anderson, 

 Southeast Regional Supervisor for the Division of Wildlife Conser- 

 vation, Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Juneau. We wel- 

 come you and look forward to your testimony and would ask that 

 you, too, summarize, please. 



Please proceed. 



STATEMENT OF DR. DAVID A. ANDERSON, SOUTHEAST REGIONAL 

 SUPERVISOR, DIVISION OF WILDLIFE CONSERVATION, 

 ALASKA DEPARTMENT OF FISH AND GAME 



Dr. Anderson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I certainly appreciate 

 this opportunity. 



As you mentioned, my name is Dr. David A. Anderson. I am cur- 

 rently the Southeast Regional Supervisor for the Division of Wild- 

 life Conservation, Alaska Department of Fish and Game, and my 

 home is Juneau. I hold a Ph.D. in wildlife science from the College 

 of Forest Resources at the University of Washington. I supervise 

 all state wildlife research and management programs on the Ton- 

 gass National Forest. 



I am here today at the request of the committee to testify on 

 behalf of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game on technical 

 issues related to the impacts of current forest management prac- 

 tices on wildlife and upon the habitat upon which it depends. 



I would like to begin by noting that the Tongass National Forest 

 contains the last major expanses of pristine temperate rain forest 

 in North America. The remote wilderness character of much of the 

 region provides habitat for abundant fish and wildlife resources, 

 many of which have been mentioned here by other individuals and 

 which I will not repeat, as well as refugia from which harvested 

 wildlife populations can be replenished on a sustained yield basis. 



Although it is true that most of the Tongass land base will never 

 be logged, I believe that it is important to recognize that the most 

 important wildlife habitat occurs in the comparatively rare produc- 



