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Show Coalition Announces Its Opposition To Trust Bills A coalition of wildlife, hunting, hunt-ing, and environmental organizations organiza-tions has announced its opposition to three bills involving school trust lands which have been introduced intro-duced into the Utah State Legislature. Legisla-ture. The bills were a product of the Public School Trust Lands Task Force and passed out of the Education Educa-tion Interim Committee in December. Decem-ber. The groups are concerned that the proposed changes would effectively effec-tively eliminate the multiple use management mandate as well as planning requirements on the management man-agement of trust lands. According to Wayne Martinson of the Utah Audubon Coordinating Committee, "these proposals completely com-pletely ignore the multi-faceted benefits generated by multiple use management of trust lands." Added Douglas Day of the Utah Wildlife Leadership Coalition, the state's largest wildlife organization, organiza-tion, "the bills neglect the fact that hunting and other outdoor activities activi-ties on trust lands generate a great deal of taxes which support Utah's education system." "One of the bills goes so far in the wrong direction that its passage pas-sage would result in a tacit endorsement en-dorsement of historic illegal mis- management of trust lands by the Division of State Lands and Forestry," said Ken Rait of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. Alli-ance. Jack Ray of the Utah Wildlife Federation argues that the proposals propos-als seek a quick fix to a very complicated com-plicated problem and "ignore the likelihood that even if trust lands did generate more than 0.6 percent of education's budget, education appropriations would be slashed by the money-tight legislature." "The effect of these bills will, over the long term, run counter to their intent of enhancing revenues from trust lands," said George . Nickas of the Utah Wilderness Association. As-sociation. Nickas added, "they would give the illusion that a very complex issue has been resolved when in fact the only result will probably be damage to irreplaceable irreplace-able lands." "These bills create adversaries out of natural partners: education and environmental groups," said Key Denton of the Sierra Club. The groups scheduled a press conference for Friday, January 17 at 9:30 a.m. in the Governor's Board Room located at the State Capitol Building to discuss their positions. |