[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 140 (Friday, September 30, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: September 30, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                         ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS

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            DISSOLUTION OF THE NORTHERN FOREST LANDS COUNCIL

 Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I rise today to mark the final day 
of the Northern Forest Lands Council which will officially dissolve at 
5 p.m. this afternoon.
  I bring this before my colleagues today because I believe that the 
council's work will touch not only the northern forest, but the Nation. 
I am proud of what the council has done for the north country, but I am 
also hopeful for rural America. The council's effort provides a 
national model for managing natural resources.
  The Northern Forest Lands Council was created in 1990 to avoid a 
crisis, not to react to one. Too often we wait until the timber 
resource is depleted, the streams are choked, property values have 
fallen, families are suffering, and communities are divided before we 
act. We should work to sculpt a future, rather than reconstruct broken 
pieces.
  If one drives through New England today, things look fine. The fall 
foliage in the northern forest is at peak brilliance, green farms dot 
the landscape, and smoke curls from chimneys in the crisp autumn air. 
Today's northern Vermont is almost the epitome of peace and 
contentment. And yet people chose to act.
  It is easy to ignore the problems at the doorstep of the northern 
forest. Seventy million people, a quarter of the United States, can be 
at the forest within an 8 hour drive, but only a few have come so far. 
Regressive tax policies, global trade, urban influences, environmental 
degradation, and other pressures exist but they are not unbearable--
yet.
  You can see how it would be easy to become complacent and let chance 
and circumstance infiltrate the forest. If you read the council's 
report, you can also see the tremendous advantage for taking local 
control--and for choosing a future instead of accepting one.
  Choosing a future means raising children in a safe community, 
retiring with security, and working a sustainable job. Choosing a 
future means choosing lifestyle and realizing goals. Those of us lucky 
enough to choose our future know the satisfaction of realizing it. This 
is what the council was all about.
  Taking control is not only a good investment for local people, it is 
prudent for the country. We know too well that taxpayers now bear the 
brunt of ecological collapse in the Pacific Northwest. Tens of millions 
of dollars have been spent to clean up mistakes in resource management. 
No amount of money can compensate for the social pain that has been 
endured.
  Taxpayers may soon pay the price of ecological collapse of the North 
Atlantic fishery where some stocks of fish are 95 percent below their 
historic levels. While the region performs triage on this disaster, 
many fishermen are bound to lose their livelihoods and lifestyles. 
Water shortages in the South and in California, flooding in the 
bottomlands of the midwest, fire in the forests of the Rocky 
Mountains--all of these disasters have ripped the rug out from 
underneath the lives of some hard-working Americans.
  Hard-working Americans have suffered from a fate they neither chose 
nor wanted. In the late 1980's, the people of the northern forest 
recognized that the power to choose still existed. The Northern Forest 
Land Council's 1994 report describes their choice. It serves the goals 
of the northern forest communities and it serves the Nation.
  I urge my northern forest colleagues in New York, Vermont, New 
Hampshire, and Maine to study the council's process and consider 
carefully the recommendations. There are a number of recommendations 
that require our direct leadership and dedication. Divergent viewpoints 
have converged on common themes. The people have produced comprehensive 
consensus requests that range from tax law reform to biodiversity 
protection. Together we can bring home the future that our constituents 
have chosen. The time to act is now, and I welcome my colleagues' 
active interest.
  For the rest of my colleagues, I hope that you find our process 
useful to the issues that perplex your people and threaten the 
resources. The council members know that they have done more than 
protect the northern forest. They have set up a model of community 
participation, productive dialog, and consensus decisionmaking that 
could serve other parts of the country very well.
  Finally, I want to commend once again the men and women who I believe 
have set a standard for natural resource management in our country. The 
Citizen Advisory Committees and in Vermont the Citizen's Network 
provided thoughtfulness and leadership from the moment they were 
convened several years ago to the final meeting of the council a week 
ago today.
  The volunteer council members dedicated many weekends, weeknights, 
and vacation days to serving the northern forest communities. Their 
dedication outstrips all of my expectations and I am very grateful. 
They can resume their family lives knowing that their families will 
inherit a future that the north country chose, rather than a fate that 
was delivered.

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