[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 82 (Thursday, June 12, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1211]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  STATEMENTS BY IAN GOLLUB AND AMANDA SCHROCKE, HANOVER HIGH SCHOOL, 
                  HANOVER NH, REGARDING CLEAR-CUTTING

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. BERNARD SANDERS

                               of vermont

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, June 12, 1997

  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, for the benefit of my colleagues I would 
like to have printed in the Record this statement by high school 
students from Hanover High School in Hanover, NH, who were speaking at 
my recent town meeting on issues facing young people.

       Mr. Gollub. Hello, Congressman Sanders. My name is Ian 
     Gollub and I am here today to represent the views of my 
     classmates from Hanover High School in Hanover, New 
     Hampshire.
       Clear-cutting the forest in Vermont and elsewhere in our 
     nation is very important to our Vermont-New Hampshire 
     students. My classmates and I sincerely believe that clear-
     cutting the forests and woodlands not only inhibits future 
     growth but dangerously jeopardizes other aspects of our 
     ecosystem.
       The two main issues we have chosen to cover are the 
     environment and economics. First the environmental issue:
       Not only are we destroying the forest's aesthetic beauty 
     but we are injuring the long-term health of the forest as 
     well. When we remove trees by clear-cutting, we tear up the 
     ground and compress the soil. The trees are gone, leaving 
     roots and subterranean soil organisms tightly compacted 
     underground to stave and die. Necessary fungi and nutrients 
     are killed by erosion of powerful sunlight falling on an open 
     area for the first time.
       For the specific reason organisms, plants or animals are 
     killed then any diversity is lost or impoverished by chronic 
     reduction of regional populations said E.C. Pineau in the 
     magazine, Nature's Companion. Which brings me to my next 
     point.
       Large populations of animals are being driven away by the 
     lack of shaded areas in which to live. With such drastic 
     changes in habitat to the local animal populations and the 
     deaths of many preexisting animals and plants we are 
     retarding the rate of ecological regeneration by many, many 
     years.
       While some efforts have been made to regenerate the cut 
     forests we will never see the forests full again; just 
     scattered arrangements of various flora growth with no 
     relation to the region's ancestors. But the most typical 
     resolution for the forest is a giant open wasteland, a 
     wasteland which is comprised of dead roots and massive 
     eroded mud surfaces.
       The conclusion of our argument confirms our assertion that 
     in no way and no how is clear-cutting beneficial to our 
     nation's flora and fauna life. I would now like to pass the 
     remainder of my time to my classmate and end short.
       Ms. Schrocke. So long does the American dream become 
     endangered as the huge logging industry strives to take 
     control of our land. In Maine the large paper industries have 
     reduced the spruce and fir populations valuable for paper 
     production by 40 percent. Currently half of paper pulp is 
     hardwood as a result; hardwood, which is traditionally used 
     by the smaller local timber industries.
       These large corporations undermine the values of such 
     industries as local sawmills, fishing and hunting, guides, 
     river rafting companies and perhaps more important to 
     Vermonters, maple syrup producers. These large companies ship 
     an astonishing 24 percent of timber cut overseas as whole 
     logs eliminating jobs for local mills. The name of the game 
     is money, and if selling the timber to the Japanese makes 40 
     percent more money, that becomes the priority. These 
     corporations yield the rewards while the human consequences 
     are borne by the working people.
       If the clear-cutting continues millions of jobs will be 
     lost because people care more about short-term profits than 
     long-term preservation. Vermonters will be forced to pay 
     millions of dollars to plan and instigate reforestation. The 
     government of Alaska found out the hard way when confronted 
     with the need to pay $40 million to reforest the Tongas.
       We must also look for further solutions when reforestation 
     plans fail because the nutrients once prevalent in the soil 
     have gone up in smoke and the wasted fields have been sold to 
     condominium developers as many have in Maine. Loggers will 
     become their own breed of endangered species if we do not do 
     something now to preserve our forests for both ecological and 
     economic purposes.
       Our classmates at Hanover High School ask that a government 
     policy be instigated which would ban or greatly reduce the 
     practice of clear-cutting in favor of a selected cutting 
     policy. This policy would preserve our forests for future use 
     by reducing soil damage and improper pruning technique which 
     come hand-in-hand with clear-cutting. A law for the 
     continuation of the natural habitat which has stood for 
     centuries and provided for animal and logger both. Now is not 
     a time for talk, now is the time for action.
       Mr. Gollub. When you decide that you are going to clear-cut 
     your own property and you decide you would like to therefore 
     ruin your land, the nearby land and surrounding areas, 
     ecosystems and the plants and animals that might only be 
     found in that area would be severely damaged.
       Ms. Schrocke. One of the problems is that we are not 
     necessarily asking that private land be regulated so much as 
     the public land because unfortunately as the logging industry 
     and the timber industry cuts the trees on their land they are 
     continually asking our government to sell some of our 
     national forest which we consider to be national treasures.
       Mr. Gollub. Well as you might know actually the bill in 
     Vermont was passed I think two days ago and actually I was 
     reading it on the way up, and what it is saying is that when 
     you want to clear-cut now you have within a certain number of 
     feet from other people's harvesting area, you have to have 
     that approved because if you just wanted to destroy your land 
     and your own ecosystem that is not possible because you are 
     influencing the surrounding area. Clear-cutting devastates 
     the soil in the area where trees are cut because of the way 
     the soil is compacted and the trees were removed from 
     nutrients and the other soil organisms are killed and left to 
     die; therefore, the area can be eroded by the sunlight and 
     the water passing through.
       Ms. Schrocke. Saying people have the right to do whatever 
     they choose is an okay argument only willing to think in the 
     short term, but if you are willing to think in the long term 
     and you are looking at the long-term repercussions of this, I 
     would say it is more important to feed your family for a 
     lifetime than it is for just a couple of years. And as things 
     are going right now, we are not going to have any forests 
     left for loggers to cut down.

     

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