11 



It's a conscious decision by somebody, and that makes the impact 

 all the harder to take for those folks. 



Chairman Hansen. Dr. Neuenschwander, did you want to com- 

 ment? 



Mr. Neuenschwander. Yes, I would like to comment on that, 

 sir. I believe that we must fix the underlying problem and not just 

 treat the symptoms, and to do that we need to examine the varia- 

 bility that exists between forest to forest and even within a forest. 

 One prescription, one method will not fix all of the problems every- 

 where. 



The use of prescribed fire is one tool. It's a valuable tool, and in 

 my opinion the agencies are getting started and are developing pro- 

 grams, but they need to do more. There are areas in which we can 

 use some thinning crews and do some cutting of the non-commer- 

 cial trees, and then of course I've shown you one example here 

 today of how we can use harvest in a different way to maintain our 

 goals. 



But the problem is very, very large, and because it's so large we 

 really need to get a handle on it and realize that we can't treat ev- 

 erything right now at the same time, but I believe we should get 

 started. 



Chairman Hansen. In my experience on this Committee we have 

 had a lot of people here and literally gone through hundreds of 

 hearings in the 16 years I've been here. I get a lot of people in here 

 who are members of organizations who talk in emotional terms 

 about how beautiful it is and preserve it for our grand kids. Then 

 we get the other side of the coin, and that is the professionals that 

 come out of land grant colleges like Utah State and other areas, 

 and it just amazes me the difference we get on this. I almost wish 

 we could convert some of these people because you get the idea if 

 you leave it alone, mother nature will take care of it, and all we 

 get is a charred, burned, dirty mess with erosion all over. 



I don't think a lot of people realize that we've manipulated the 

 forests for a long time. I would like a dollar for every hour I've 

 spent with professional foresters in the last 16 years on what we 

 have to do to take care of the forests. And I'm really kind of dis- 

 turbed with this Administration, and I'm looking forward to Mr. 

 Lyons' comment on why we're not going in and taking out some of 

 this old dead stuff and why it is that now two by fours and four 

 by fours and all those things have gone sky high. 



I mean I would be the first to admit that sometimes we've over- 

 cut the forests, no question about it, and made a lot of mistakes, 

 but I would also say it's probably worse the way we're doing it now 

 just leaving it as it is. We're going to have that beautiful West 

 looking like a junk heap of burned out timber in a short time which 

 really disturbs me. If that's what those folks want, then I'm really 

 disturbed. 



And I can show example after example. I'm willing to take any- 

 one who is open, honest and not emotional and put them in an air- 

 plane and I'll fly it myself and fly them over some of these areas, 

 I mean if they're dumb enough to fly with me. 



[Laughter.] 



I used to be good in my younger years. I'll show them these areas 

 and see if that's what they really want out of the forests, a dead, 



