BOARD02516

• Board Meeting Date: 11/12/1958
• Description: Minutes
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Meeting

1246

We have contacted Byron Rogers about it
because he has a very close associate in the
Congress who is a member of the Commission.
We also contacted the men in Arizona we have
known many years, because one of their Congress-
men is on the Commission so that perhaps we can
get some representation here.

I believe that in all our dealings with the
natural resources which this Board is interest-
ed in, we must recognize that in the past 25
years there has been a strong and continuing
encroachment upon the multiple use of our natur-
al resources by a group who are rather fanati-
cal in it's approaches. These are not usually
the operating people. The fish and wildlife
people who have to operate these resources we
sit down with and we work our problems out with
them, but they are constantly under pressure from
people of rather radical tendencies. If you were
working, for instance, in the Fish and Game
Department of Colorado and you have on the one
hand people who want to make multiple use of our
resources and you have on the other hand a group
of radicals who say you are supposed to represent
us, it puts you in a pretty difficult position.

The trend of national legislation has been
definitely to limit the use of our nationally
owned property so that it would not be available
for oi I shale development,. for the mining of
coal, for entry for the removal of timber and
all of these things, but rather we are held down
and restricted more especially for the use of
recreation alone, Now the Forest Service itself,
for instance, has had quite a time with this
thing. They have worked up an experimental
forest here in Colorado in which they have pretty
conclusively demonstrated that proper cutting
of timber is better for watershed management,
better for recreation, it is a good thing.
Leaving timber stand in it's virgin state is bad
for everyone but because of the pressure from
these rather radical groups who want no one to
go in and touch our natural resources, the
Forest Service has had a very hard time in
proving its point that the commercial utiliza-
tion of the forests is good for the forests
and is not detrimental to recreational uses.

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