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Show A resolution could be directed to implementing a strip mining bill which would cover all surface removal - not just coal. ( Patsy Mink, Democrat, Hawaii, is sponsoring a bill - HR 8435 - in the House now to include oil shale but I don't know the details, yet.) A resolution could cover mining on public lands and/or National Forests. It could cover protection of renewable resources. YOU TALK ABOUT THIS AND HELP ME PREPARE THE MOST NEEDED RESOLUTION. O.K.? Since Juan doesn't know what my Rocky Mt. proposal is all about, - and I need him to understand this before I continue with another idea, I'll have to explain here. I would like to see formed a Rocky Mt. Coalition for the Protection of Renewable Resources. What this would do is to assemble a DATA BANK on renewable resources on particularly valuable areas ( Caribou F., oil shale destruction a&ong the White River, Utah, etc.) . This DATA could be used for a number of purposes, but one would be the supplying of particular area data to coalition memebers ( Wildlife organisations and groups; recreation users and suppliers; ranchers and farm groups; conservation groups) for dissemination to their particular constituencies in protecting and salvaging valuable areas.) As you can see by the enclosed copy, there already is a Northern Rockies Foundation being formed for purposes of protecting all manner of public resources. I called Lander, Wyoming, yesterday, and learned that there is no existing body such as I'm proposing but that part of the Northern Rockies proposal is assembling a DATA BANK. So, friends, I am not wild eyed and impractical. (Just so you knowiii; And today, I will write a co-sponsor of this Rocky Mt. Foundation and sound this group out on my proposal. Eventually, I would like to ask for financial support from them to get this thing underway. I would not necessarily be the director - but would assemble a managing and guiding board and you must anticipate being an advisor to such a group..I) It is high time you guys quit loafing and get put to workJ So, start thinking about this too, because the dimensions of this concept can extend to informing and providing or obtaining support for research such as yours and Dave's and for protection of multiple uses of National Forest and BLM lands. In the talk I gave at Pocatello I tacked on to the conclusion of that talk "an idea which emerged from listening to all the talks being given at that Conference. My tacking this on to the talk I gave was a mistake - in that I had no tilme to really explain or to develop the idea. Wrong occasion and wrong place. But, THIS IS the TIME AND PLACE. Dammiti I think the time has come to put into some kind of LEGAE FORM what habitat is. To quantify it, to assess and evaluate it and to establish it as a measurable fact. On three separate wildlife meetings - in three states - dealing with habitat situations there - I listened to scientists discuss varieties of habitat in specific detail: Townsend's ground squirrel - necessary prey of Prairie Falcons; kit foxds; Sandhill Cranes: etc. Specific data on habitat renuirements for specific wildlife s ies exists today. It is known. Habitat is a productive resource - just like timber or forage or a mineral. It is productive of an economic resource. Un itself unused, utapped, it has not this value but once put into production, same as a mineral, It HAS econmmic value in what it can provide people. Moreoverf it has perpetuating, renewing value - and is not lost after one time use. What we need to do is to have available, in some legal way, the T>4ffV»t frtt* ™<*ft nr* rtAVAloT>mftTit. of renewable resources. Outmodexl laws in our land permit exploitation and development of mineral resources at untold cost to other resources - even though the other resources also have value and considerable economic returns. I'm thinking that while we need to contain the mining laws - and eventually will - we need also to be able to stand up in court and present equivalent values and productivity. " > need a bag bargaining handle - a trade-off weapon - to ecualize resource values. Then, we can say, Dammit, you can't strip or inundate or dam up a particular area because the habitat resource has greater value than the mineral resource ON THAT SPOT! 'over a longer period of time* |
