189 



Senator Wirth. We have found in a study done for the Commit- 

 tee by the Congressional Resource Service, that the percentage of 

 designated wilderness, for example, in the Northern Region and 

 just for the record, the Bitterroot National Forest is 47 percent wil- 

 derness, the Flathead 45 percent, the Gallatin Forest 41 percent 

 and I believe that in all Montana and the Nez Perce in Idaho is 22 

 percent. 



Senator Burns. And they want more. [Applause.] 



Senator Wirth. The point is that where there is small amount 

 they want more and the point is why is it — We would appreciate it 

 if you did not interrupt, and again let me remind the people in the 

 audience that the purpose of the hearing is to try to get the facts 

 out on the record and those who wish to testify will have plenty of 

 opportunity to do so later. This is a formal proceeding and mem- 

 bers who are here are guests of the committee. 



Again, the argument is made as I understand it from Mr. Pihl, 

 that the reason that Tongass is treated differently than other na- 

 tional forests — and you made that point yourself but I am just 

 trying to understand this for the record — the reason that the Ton- 

 gass is treated differently is that such a great percentage of the 

 Tongass is in wilderness and that is unique. But I have just identi- 

 fied for the record that that is not unique, that in fact many other 

 national forests have significantly higher percentages of wilder- 

 ness. Maybe I 



Ms. Shaub. They have private timberlands that they can also go 

 to for supplies. Really that is different. 



Senator Wirth. Now just leave the record open. I think this is an 

 important question that we are going to want to know very clearly 

 what the answer is, why is the Tongass treated differently from 

 other national forests. 



Ms. Shaub. We are not asking — Senator Murkowski believes the 

 funding which supposedly was the big difference. We are just 

 asking, your Honor, the commitments and the contracts that the 

 government authorized in 1947 in the Tongass Act and recognized 

 that southeast Alaska's timber is entirely federal timber except for 

 the new private — native private ownership. There is no other pri- 

 vate timber; it is the only game in town. We brought the jobs to 

 Alaska. We met that objective and we are just asking the govern- 

 ment to continue to honor its commitment and its contract. 



Senator Murkowski. I think it is important to note that we will 

 be deleting these figures sometime as we have done in the past. 

 First of all I think it is fair to try to explain once again that in 

 1980 we put approximately 1.2 million acres in wilderness. Now, 

 what price wilderness? That took areas that were adjacent to areas 

 that had already been eroded and put them in wilderness in perpe- 

 tuity. That meant that rather accessible areas were taken off and 

 put into the wilderness category. With this determined we will look 

 at the Misty Fjords Area in the Tongass and in that area hopefully 

 you will have an opportunity to see it excluded from all logging. 

 The point is if you look at the Tongass lands statistically, realisti- 

 cally you cannot use percentages because they are meaningless. 



We have already seen movements in the State of Washington to 

 withdraw up to 2.5 million board feet from the national forest as a 

 consequence of the concern over the Spotted Owl. 



