Today our great national forests -- one of America’s most vital natural resources -- are being allowed to deteriorate, decay, and dwindle in value under a federal forest program which meets less than 50% of our minimum forest development needs. We must double this program. We must expand it to meet at least basic demands -- if we are to preserve this great national asset for future generations of Americans, while using its great productive value for this generation.
In Wisconsin alone more than 50 million board feet of timber went uncut last year – timber which was well within allowable cut limits -- timber which could have been cut had our federal forest budget been adequate.
As a result of these failures, industry has been starved for needed timber -- essential construction has been held up -- and your counties, which share in timber revenues, lost more than $80,000, which could have been used for schools or hospitals or roads.
And what is true in Wisconsin is true throughout the country. Our timber resources everywhere are going untapped and unexploited because of the lack of vision and leadership in Washington.
Not only is standing timber being wasted -- but cut timber is not being replaced. Today 147,000 acres of forest land in Wisconsin alone need reforestation -- and only 1200 of those acres were replanted last year. At this rate, it will take almost a century and a quarter to complete a job of reforestation which must be finished in the next decade if our forests are to remain productive.
Our next administration must increase reforestation as part of a great national forest program to restore our forests -- to ensure the perpetuation of America’s great forest abundance.
Source: David F. Powers Personal Papers, Box 33, "National Forests, Oconomowoc, WI, 31 March 1960." John F. Kennedy Presidential Library.