BlueRibbon's Don Amador Testifies in Wash. DC on Boxer Bill and New Wilderness Areas.

(BlueRibbon opposes Boxer Bill)

Testimony Statement by the BLUERIBBON COALITION on S738 to designate certain public lands in Humboldt, Del Norte, Mendocino, Lake, Napa, and Yolo Counties in the State of California as Wilderness and to designate certain segments of the Black Butte River in Mendocino County, California as Wild or Scenic River.

Mr. Chairman and honorable committee members, I am Don Amador the Western Representative for the BlueRibbon Coalition (BRC), based in Pocatello, Idaho. The BlueRibbon Coalition is a national recreation group that champions responsible use of public and private lands, and encourages individual environmental stewardship. It represents over 10,000 individual members and 1,100 organization and business members, for a combined total of over 600,000 recreationists nationwide.

I am a native of Humboldt County and grew up in the Eureka area hunting, fishing in the ocean and streams, hiking in state parks, and riding my off-highway vehicle on public lands. In fact, the black bear I bagged in the late 1970s was the first bear taken off of Underwood Mountain (a proposed Wilderness area) according to the USDA Forest Service (FS) officer who validated my tag.

Between 1994 - 2000, I was a commissioner and chairman for the Off-Highway Motor Vehicle Recreation (OHMVR) Commission at California State Parks. I currently serve on the OHMVR community stakeholders group. I helped develop the current Memorandum of Understanding between BRC and the Washington Office of the USDA Forest Service. Recently on behalf of BRC, I partnered with the Mendocino National Forest on a joint grant request to Tread Lightly! and their HUMMER HELPS program to fund the restoration of the North Fork Campground that was destroyed in the 2002 Trough Fire. I have been invited to speak on public land access issues by the Society of Environmental Journalists, Outdoor Writers Association of America, and the Western Outdoor Writers.

BRC members work hard to promote a responsible land-use ethic and donate literally thousands of hours to maintain our existing trail and recreational facilities on lands managed by the FS and Bureau of Land Management (BLM). BRC also supports the intent of the original Wilderness Act of 1964 as, "an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain; an area of undeveloped Federal land retaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation, which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions."