78-13-B1

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Needed: Better Use of National Forests

Transcript That phrase, "as sound as a dollar" may come across with a dull thud in some parts of the world right now, but the American economy -- and the system that fosters it--continues to be the envy of the world. Sheiks, Greeks, Germans and Japanese are all investing in the United States. It's still the land of opportunity. We gained our position among nations by being highly productive: a combination of hard work, widespread ingenuity, enthusiasm and the willingness to use our abundant natural resources. If we expect to retain this economic prominence based on productivity, we must ask and answer -- a couple of hard questions: Can we afford to let our productivity decline? And, is it possible to meet the rising expectations of the poor among us if we reduce the willingness of people to work and if we inhibit the use of our natural resource endowment? Our national forests dramatize that last question. They are now being managed much less effectively than they could and must be if we are to meet rising demands for wood and paper products. Forests, unlike many other raw material resources, can be renewed. When properly managed, as is being demonstrated on the lands of more progressive forest industry companies, the productivity of forest land s can be doubled. But there is no government policy to encourage this kind of increased productivity from forests, public or private. It is clearly profitable for industry to grow its raw material resources at an efficient and rapid rate. But, for some reason, it is considered improper for the public to realize comparable profit returns from its own timber-growing lands. Not only do public forests lag behind well-managed private ones in productivity, but the government is also adopting measures that remove large areas of land and volumes of timber from our industrial resource base. Under one program alone, now in process on the roadless lands of the national forests, some six billion feet of timber (enough to build half-a-million homes a year) may be put into the National Wilderness Preservation System and thus lost forever to productive use. One study of the economic impact of this land--withdrawal program estimates that within a few years it could cause the median price of a single family house to go up almost $1,800. The same program could cost some 29,000 forest industry employees their jobs and increase the general inflation rate nationwide by one per cent. And these effects relate to the timber volumes withdrawn from use. In addition, under these lands are coal and oil and natural gas and mineral deposits which, turned to productive use, could improve our economy and help strengthen the dollar. The unavailability of these public resources to provide jobs, wages and yes, taxes, undermines the who l e system that has made us prosperous. Though the issue is not quite so simple as being a matter of wilderness for the few versus a good standard of living for the many -- it's not far from it. This is Ronald Reagan. Thanks for listening.		Details Batch Number 78-13-B1 Production Date 09/19/1978 Book/Page Online PDF Audio Youtube? No
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