John Hope Bryant: “Madam Chairman and Members, many of you have cosponsored over the last several years a strong attempt to move in the…”

“Madam Chairman and Members, many of you have cosponsored over the last several years a strong attempt to move in the direction of a new and more reasonable management of our publicly owned lands with regard to harvesting of forests. It is a proposal to prohibit clearcutting as a method of harvesting, H.R. 1164. The amendment before the House that I am laying out today is simply the application of this bill to the Montana wilderness bill. I want to start by saying that this amendment does not deal with whether to harvest timber on public lands, but with how to harvest timber. It does not deal with private lands in any way whatsoever. It does not prohibit harvesting. What it does do is recognize the Department of Agriculture is conducting even-age management, which is a fancy word for clearcutting, on the vast majority of the 57 million acres of available commercial timberland in our national forests as well as on other federally owned forests. No person in this country, scientist or otherwise, can look at these pictures and in any fashion whatsoever justify this as a method of caring for the lands which my colleagues, and I, and every other citizen in this country, own.”