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<br /> <br />,.,.. , ~ <br /> <br />California Desert Planning Staff in Riverside. What I want to call <br />attention to at this time is, as you listen to this presentation, <br />that you keep in mind that the study is confined to the desert area <br />within the State of California and that the desert continues on east <br />and northeast of that line. Think about whether it would be a <br />desirable action by this Committee to perhaps make recommendations <br />that this particular study be expanded to cover the rest of the <br />desert area in the Pacific Southwest. Now the study has of course <br />corne about as a result of the great pressures that the desert <br />resources have received and are receiving and will continue to <br />receive from the large metropolitan areas of Los Angeles and San <br />Diego. It will also be the same story in Nevada and Arizona. So <br />as you listen to Mr. Pfulb, who will be making the presentation, <br />I would hope that you would relate what he is telling you as being <br />done in California to perhaps, it would be a desirable thing to do <br />in other parts of the Pacific Southwest. <br /> <br />Mr. Pfulb. Thank you Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the invita- <br />tat ion to BLM to corne over and share with you the progress and the <br />background, first of the study, and the progress which is being made. <br />In talking with Phil briefly before the meeting and responding to <br />his expression of concern here about looking at this desert in <br />California as a part of the Great Western Desert, I can relate to <br />that with a little background on some of the initial beginnings of <br />this study, which occured during the 1960's about the mid-60's. I <br />think the major forces that initiated a concern about the California <br />Desert began as usual with changes in awareness, public concern. <br />During the 60's there was a general increasing of public awareness <br />about environmental conditions in the metropolitan areas. This <br />was coupled and this concern, by the ,way, was not only for the environ- <br />mental conditions in the metropolitan areas, but outside, because with <br />the decline of environmental quality in metropolitan areas a greater <br />portion of the public sought a way to escape, at least on weekends. <br />The escape for Southern Californians, first had its greatest impact, <br />I believe, on the mountains, in the National Forests, surrounding <br />basically the coastal plains of the metropolitan areas. But it <br />wasn't long before one other major factor during the 60's caused <br />those forces to go beyond the mountains. That factor I think was <br />accessibility. Accessi~ility in terms of the way, highways were <br />improved, through the mountains and out into the desert, to get to <br />desert communities and interstate. Accessibility in the form of <br />greater and easier means for the private individual ~o travel off <br />highways. A wide assortment of new kinds of vehicles and recre- <br />ational vehicles of all kinds carne on the market and began to be <br />purchased in increasing numbers and fell, I believe upon this <br />desire to escape and get into an area where they could get away <br />from it all. So in the mid-sixties things began to happen in the <br /> <br />B-8 <br />