Statement About the Report of the Advisory Panel on Timber and the Environment

I HAVE received today the findings and recommendations of my Advisory Panel on Timber and the Environment. This group of qualified, prominent citizens has studied the entire range of timber management problems in our country and has provided valuable advice on increasing the Nation's supply of timber to meet our growing housing needs while protecting and enhancing the quality of our environment. Its report, which at my direction has also been delivered to the Secretary of Agriculture and the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, is now available.

The members of this Panel are to be highly commended for their thorough and wide-ranging analysis of forestry and environmental problems and opportunities. This report is the result of 2 years of study and investigation under the capable leadership of Chairman Fred A. Seaton.

The Panel estimates that our national forests contain 52 percent of the Nation's softwood sawtimber inventory. Much of this land is overstocked with mature and overmature timber. As a result, the annual growth per acre in our national forests is less than half of that found on other commercial forest lands. According to the Panel, the main forestry issue facing us in the next several decades is the rate at which this old-growth timber in the national forests is converted to new, well-managed stands of trees.

To meet our current and future needs for lumber, the Panel recommends that timber sales from national forests be raised to and maintained at allowable harvest levels wherever market demand is sufficient and so long as adequate funding is made available. This is an objective with which the Forest Service concurs, and I endorse it. The Panel further recommends that allowable cut determination policies be reviewed and revised to allow timber output from the national forests more adequately to serve our national timber supply needs.

After a careful review of scientific findings, the Panel has determined that most of the damage caused by logging operations can be avoided or minimized. Based on the findings of this report, fears of permanent or widespread environmental damage due to timber harvesting would appear to be unfounded, misleading, or exaggerated.

The Panel recognizes, however, that basic environmental protection is key to the national forests' long-term value for timber production and other use, and thus concludes that protection of environmental quality must be a major goal of national forest management.

Many other findings and recommendations which deserve careful evaluation and consideration are contained in this document. I have asked the Timber Task Force, under the leadership of the Office of Management and Budget, to assess this report carefully and to put into effect as many of its major recommendations as they consider practical.

Our country has been greatly blessed in natural resources, through a combination of temperate weather and fertile land.

But no resources, however rich, are either inexhaustible or indestructible. Therefore. we must strike a careful balance between protection and use. The price of economic growth need not be the deterioration of our lives and our surroundings. All Americans should recognize the value inherent in the unique renewability of our forest resources; they must be cherished, nurtured, and intelligently utilized. This report is a valuable contribution toward helping us meet these goals.