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Mr. ASPINALL. All right. A conservationist, however, can be a good user, a wise user of our natural resources, can he not?

Mr. KINDSCHY. I understand some people use that definition; yes, sir. Mr. ASPINALL. That was Theodore Roosevelt's and Governor Pinchot's definition.

Now, Mr. Gunter, may I ask you a question?

Mr. GUNTER. Yes, sir.

Mr. ASPINALL. First of all, I want to thank you for that book and I am going to read the book with a great deal of interest.

What is your definition of a conservationist?

Mr. GUNTER. I accept Theodore Roosevelt's definition as one who wishes to use. However, I would like to point out that both Theodore Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot included within that wise use the setting aside of certain natural areas as such.

Mr. ASPINALL. You are absolutely right.
Thank you very much.

Mr. GUNTER. You are welcome.

Mr. TAYLOR. The gentleman from Texas.

Mr. KAZEN. Mr. Gunter, I want to commend you on the statement that you made before the committee, sir. I think it is a very well thought out statement. I know that you have spent a lot of time on this subject as have the other witnesses that have appeared before us. However, one point that you make is the urgency of creating this Big Thicket park and the setting aside of this area as soon as possible. Mr. GUNTER. Yes, sir.

Mr. KAZEN. Yet, followed by Mr. Fritz, who now proposes this particular plan, you realize, of course, that it is going to take a long time. to make these surveys and to work out these boundaries. I think on the one hand you are saying what you want and on the other hand you are giving us a procedure that is going in itself to take a long time.

This committee itself cannot do this. You are going to have to work with the engineers and-who is involved in this, Mr. Chairman? The engineers of the Park Service. And this in itself is going to take a long time, we are saying one thing and then arguing against it at the same time.

I just want to bring this to your attention because this is what is going to be involved, the technicalities of working out this particular type of a plan is going to take time.

But I do want to commend you for the statement that you made before the committee this morning.

Mr. Fritz

Mr. FRITZ. Yes, Mr. Kazen.

Mr. KAZEN. You have been talking about emeralds. Now, is this the same thing as the pearls that we have been hearing?

Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir, except they are green.

Mr. KAZEN. I am not being facetious. I want to know if you are using the terms synonymously.

Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir, except, for example, when the 1967 study report was made by a study team of the National Park Service, they did not include all of the items that we now include, and so it also helps by using that term, helps me to distinguish the original pearls from the present choice ecological units.

Mr. Kazen. Thank you very much, and thank you. Mr. Kindschy, for your testimony.

Mr. KINDSCHY. Thank you, sir.

Mr. TAYLOR. You are Mr. Bonney?

Mr. BONNEY. Yes, and

Mr. TAYLOR. I was thinking that Mr. Fritz was going to be the last spokesman for this group.

Mr. BONNEY. I would like my full statement to be part of the record and I would just like a few comments on it.

Mr. TAYLOR. Could you finish within 1 minute and we will give the next group the same amount of time.

Mr. BONNEY. I will try, and I have a brochure with a map and I wish that to be part of the record.

Mr. TAYLOR. It will be made a part of the record or file, as appropriate.

Mr. BONNEY. My name is Orrin Bonney. I am a lawyer and a writer. I have lived in a nearby county in the east Texas woods for 35 years and my 200 acres was once part of the Big Thicket and it is still in its natural state.

For 40 summers I have gone to the mountains in Jackson Hole country where there is a national park and I own a piece of land with a little log cabin on it which is part of that national park, inside the boundaries of it.

I know what it is to live in a national park and how a community can reap all the benefits of a national park.

I want to say that I got a letter, although it is no part of the Jackson Hole legislation, I get a letter registered every year telling me I can stay there, they are not going to take my property away from me, but they will buy it from me and let me have a lifetime lease on it if I want to do so.

In the western national parks they form a great area for the reservoir of game which spills out into the adjoining country and Jackson Hole is one of the best hunting regions in the entire 48 States. Mr. TAYLOR. Can you finish in about 15 seconds?

Mr. BONNEY. All right. My statement will be part of the record. Here we have in the Big Thicket a unique and precious area, the biological crossroads of North America where the forests and plants of many parts of our country come together and meet and affect each other.

There is nothing, no national park, no wilderness designation, nothing to protect a single acre in any southern forest as an example of our fine southern hardwood species. Southern hardwoods could become a memory as the pine plantations take over.

Gentlemen, here is an opportunity to do something about this missing gap in the national park system. At least give us 100.000 acres and we could have more, if you give it to us.

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you very much. Let me state I am sorry that we have to appear to be in a hurry but we have a long list of witnesses and we want those near the bottom of the list to be heard the same as those near the first.

I commend the people here on the interest that l large crowd and which produced the long witness

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find, though, that before the afternoon is over, that every imaginable argument and point of view will have been presented. At least we hope so. And all sides will have been heard fully.

(Mr. Bonney's statement follows:)

STATEMENT OF ORRIN H. BONNEY

My name is Orrin H. Bonney. I am a lawyer and a writer. I have lived in the East Texas woods for 35 years in what was once part of the Big Thicket a hundred miles west. My 200 acres is still the same. Big Thicket country, the great wonder that it has always been, but I am now surrounded by subdivisions. The lumber interests over those years have cut and gotten out. No matter what saw logs I now grow there is no one to buy them.

It would be a fine thing for me if the government would pay me the value of my land, keep it as it has always been, and let me live out my days there in the forest with the deer, the squirrels, the possums and raccoons, the bass fishing and all the rest. Then it would become public land and my grandchildren and even future generations could still come there and enjoy it.

For forty summers I've gone to the mountain country of Jackson's Hole in Wyoming where I have a small piece of land with a little log cabin on it, an old trapper's hangout, inside the boundaries of Grand Teton National Park. Incidentally I get a registered letter from the National Park Service about once a year I just got one the other day-telling me that I won't be disturbed but if I want to sell, the National Park Service will buy me out and let me and my wife stay there as long as either of us lives.

I know the National Park people. I have had to deal with them in the actual practical aspects of life over all these years, not just the theoretical aspects. I know how great it is for a community to reap all the benefits of a national park. I have written a book on Yellowstone and its first official exploration. Another book, my guidebook to Grand Teton Park has been adopted as the official guidebook of the region.

Until my heart attack a while ago I was head of the Big Thicket Coordinating Committee and I know the dedication and desire of the citizens of Texas to establish the Big Thicket National Park-and I hope this doesn't surprise you— Every women's club in Texas has had a Big Thicket committee. All Texas is talking about a meaningful park--not less than the compromise of 100,000 acres and hopefully more.

The river corridors and flood plains have never been prime logging areas in East Texas. That is one of the reasons the conservationists advocated them for the Park-these lands have little impact on the industry. Another reason, of course, is that because it was never too practical to log them they are more nearly in their natural state.

But speaking of compromise-I hope I'm not talking out of turn-every acre which you heard Congressman Eckhardt recommend today has been gone over in fine detail with all the Big Thicket advocates and they are all willing to accept this version. The timber industry and the Big Thicket advocates have also sat down together across the table and discussed them and I don't think you will even find too much difference there.

The Sierra Club (I have been a member of its national council), the Wilderness Society, the Audubon Society (I belong to both) and similar organizations do not create public opinion in matters like this; they speak for the public opinion which already exists. That is the force which has made them so effective.

I own 100 shares of Santa Fe which I bought on the New York Stock Exchange five years ago. After I bought them I found out that Santa Fe owns Kirby Lumber Company, and Kirby owns over half a million acres of East Texas forest. Legally, though I don't have a right to speak for them, I suppose that makes me one of the timber industry owners, perhaps more so than many others in this room today. The timber industry is not local citizens but thousands of absentee stockholders who live in all parts of the United States.

I will say that the establishment of Big Thicket National Park will not by one iota change the value of my stock on the New York stock market or affect its dividends.

Pardon me if I talk about Kirby. I am not trying to single them out. They are a well managed company. But what is applicable to them is applicable to the rest of the industry. I want to talk about facts I know.

The state and county tax collector of Hardin County, where much of the proposed national park lies, values Kirby's and other timber industry lands at about $88 per acre, and assesses them on the tax rolls at $31 an aere; the school tax assessor at Kountze, the county seat, values these lands at $80 an acre and assesses them at about $43 an acre. In that locality Kirby's tax payments amount to $1.26 per acre per year.

As an example, Kirby owns 1985 acres in the 200.000 acre unit called the Saratoga Triangle of the Eckhardt bill, and they own 3,917 acres in the Profile Unit. In these two units we're talking about 6,000 acres and about $7,500 in taxes. This is not peanuts, but they are pretty small figures when one compares them with the over 500,000 acres of timberland Kirby owns, or the few million dollar motels that a national park would bring to the tax base of the area.

Kirby has 1.000 employees and that figures out about 200 employees per 100,000 acres, the equivalent of the park, if you spread it out among all the various owners. 796 of them live in Hardin County-and I don't think any of them or any other industry employee will lose his job on account of the Park going in. Kirby will lose only a small portion of the 100,000 acres, although probably more than others of the timber industry. But I don't believe they will lose an employee. But the Park will bring in well-paid government jobs, motel and restaurant staffs, automobiles and services, travelers and dollars, and a whole new and prosperous economy which is growing rapidly in those localities which have something to offer like a national park.

But just compare the present facts (taken from the Texas Almanac 1972) which show that Hardin County with its one industry-timber-has only about 10% of its population employed, compared to Harris County which has one third of its population employed.

Let me tell you something about economics-and here again I'd like to talk from what has really happened and not from speculation as to what might happen. As I told you, I have a place where I have lived part of each year in Teton County, Jackson's Hole, Wyoming. Originally Teton County was the poorest county in the state of Wyoming and when Grand Teton National Park was finally established it left less than 4% of the county lands in private hands-4%, mind you. The Federal Government reimbursed the County for all its loss of taxes for ten years and then on a descending scale for the next twenty years. But only a few years passed before the county was thriving from new business and new construction, and now has 3 million visitors each year-and you know what-it is now one of the richest counties in the state--you name the wealthTeton County has it. Its business and sales, shown exactly and statistically by its sales taxes, are the fourth largest in the state.

Here in the Big Thicket we have a unique and precious area-the Biological Crossroads of North America, where the forests and plants of many parts of our country come together and meet and affect each other. We need to keep such an area intact and to have it large enough for scientific study, to know what effect species from different parts of the country have on each other when they come together in the same environment. Does one plant help and improve the other or detract from the other. We need the Big Thicket as a natural proving ground. Even the timber industry needs it.

There is nothing-no national park-no wilderness designation-nothing to protect a single acre in any southern forest as an example of our fine southern hardwoods. The southern hardwoods could become but a memory as the pine plantations take over. Gentlemen, here is an opportunity to do something about this vital but missing gap in the National Park system. At least give us the 100.000 acres.

Mr. TAYLOR. Our next witness is Mr. Oliver R. Crawford, chairman of the Texas Forestry Association, accompanied by four other individuals. The first group took 17 minutes of regular time. We hope you can finish within the same time as you present the other side of the argument, and then we will ask our questions.

86-024-72—4

STATEMENT OF OLIVER R. CRAWFORD, CHAIRMAN OF THE TEXAS FORESTRY ASSOCIATION; ACCOMPANIED BY TOM ORTH, PRESIDENT, KIRBY LUMBER CORP.; EDWARD WAGONER, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, TEXAS FORESTRY ASSOCIATION; WILLIAM W. RAYBURN, WOODLAWN DIVISION, OWEN-ILLINOIS; AND GLEN CHANCELOR, ASSISTANT TO THE GENERAL MANAGER, SOUTHWESTERN TIMBER CO.

Mr. CRAWFORD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee, Congressmen Brooks, Eckhardt, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Ö. R. Crawford. I am vice president of Eastex, Inc., and chairman of the Big Thicket Preservation Committee of the Texas Forestry Association.

I am a native of Amarillo, although I live in Jasper, 70 miles from here. I grew up in the Texas Panhandle.

A tree was sacred in my youth and still is something sacred. When I walked in the door awhile ago I ran into Dr. Bill Graber, who asked me if my membership in the Sierra Club was still current and I assured him it was.

Mr. Chairman, with me today is Tom Orth, president of the Kirby Lumber Corp., Ed Waggoner, executive vice president of the Texas Forestry Association, Bill Rayburn, head of the Woodlawn Division of Owen-Illinois, and Glen Chancelor, assistant to the general manager of Southwestern Timber Co. They have relinquished their time to me, but I will not need all of it.

You have in front of you a copy of my statement. I am going to skim through it and only hit the high points, so it is going to be very difficult to follow.

Mr. TAYLOR. You may take the time assigned or you can let one of those witnesses back you up if you see fit.

Mr. CRAWFORD. Thank you, sir.

The Texas Forestry Association and its members endorsed and vigorously promoted a 35,500 acre Big Thicket National Park or Monument as included by the National Park Service in its study report dated February 1967. We declared and still maintain a cutting moratorium on that portion of the 35,500 acres under our direct control. Today 492 other organizations ranging from forestry groups through wildlife conservation organizations, garden clubs, civic groups, Chambers of Commerce, and many other groups have joined with the association in recommending the adoption of this proposal. Specific groups include the National Wildlife Federation, the American Forestry Association, and Sportsmen Clubs of Texas.

I might add that the National Rifle Association recently withdrew their support of a 100,000-acre park without urging from our organization.

Resolutions have come from 18 States other than Texas, including Alaska and Hawaii.

I have included a complete list with copies of my statement, which is being submitted to the committee.

I might add that this 100,000-acre concept has become more or less the magic number. Many years ago then Senator Ralph Yarborough

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