Testimony Offered June 4, 1996 in Saxman, Alaska

My name is Jack Phelps. I am executive director of the Alaska Forest Association (AFA). The Association was established in 1957 to represent the timber industry in Alaska, and now has nearly 300 regular and associate member companies statewide. We will be submitting extensive written comments later in the comment period.

The Association is opposed to the adoption of the preferred alternative. This alternative will reduce the available forest land base below what is necessary to allow sufficient timber harvest to sustain the existing industry. The industry is committed to the concept of a sustained yield on the Tongass National Forest. The Tongass is capable of providing a sustained harvest of between four and five hundred million feet of timber on a perpetual basis without harm to other uses, including wildlife, fish and tourism. But it cannot do this if the government puts additional land off limits.

I am amazed that the Forest Service continues to make misleading statements in the TLMP discussions by repeatedly stating that the proposed Allowable Sale Quantity (ASQ) is sufficient to meet the KPC contract volume and also allow 100 mmbf for the Small Business Administration set-aside program. You know this would be true only if every last bit of the allowable cut were made available every year, and you know you are not going to be able to meet that goal. I would urge you to stop repeating this falsehood. If you are determined to reduce the harvest, at least be honest enough to admit it.

The fact is that with the land base reduced to 1.2 million acres, with the new riparian standards and small HCAs in every unit, and with the new forest-wide standards and guidelines, we will be fortunate to get 200 mmbf out of your preferred alternative each year. Personally, I doubt it will produce that much. And as you know, we can't even continue to operate the remaining mills on that small a harvest, let alone look at replacement operations for those workers who have already lost their jobs.

If these reductions were genuinely necessary to protect fish and wildlife, it would be difficult to deal with, but there would at least be a defensible reason for the harm your plan will do to the people of Southeast Alaska. But you have produced no evidence that any species are in danger on the Tongass. From all the research we have looked at--and I will be submitting evidence for this with my written comments--the conclusions are just the opposite. All species of concern are doing quite well here.

Actually, here is a puzzling fact: the Forest Service has a success story to tell on the Tongass. Here is a forest where we have done our job well. We have sustained an industry for nearly half a century, and we have retained all the other values of the forest: fish are present in record numbers; all wildlife species are doing well; birds, including eagles, are abundant; tourism is on the rise; 93% of the old growth present in 1954 is still with us. Why, instead of tooting your own horn and proudly proclaiming your good record, you are caving to the pressures of the radical, anti-growth, anti-jobs, anti-American lunatic fringe is a mystery the likes of which Hercule Poirot himself could not solve.

As a person who has spent a large part of his life in the woods, I urge you to quit playing politics and manage this forest according to sound principles of science. No less than was true in the early post-war era, America needs to develop her natural resources responsibly. We have plenty of wilderness areas set aside already. It is time to manage the remaining commercial forests on the Tongass like foresters. It is time to cut the nonsense and do the job the taxpayers of this country hired you to do: manage our national forest as a forest, not as a park.

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