For those rugged outdoorsmen who need power while on the go there's now a green energy solution -- the portable Bourne hydroelectric generator (see appended article).

 Would the use of this product be permitted within designated Wilderness without resorting to Presidential authorization as allowed for in the Special Provisions section of the Act? Presumably the answer comes down to whether this would be considered "motorized equipment" and whether it would be considered "an installation."
What do other think? Would land managers determine the use of this product to be illegal? If not, then might we someday be seeing such things as outfitters and packers having electrified streamside Wilderness base-camps? If so, would this be acceptable?

Scott

Wilderness Unlimited offers private wilderness in Oregon and Washington States. They compete with publicly managed recreational venues and market themselves as an alternative for those who can afford something better. Interestingly enough "better" does not mean more developed. It means the opposite.
 
Here are two snippets selected from the two items which are appended.

For camping it has to be a big improvement on the Oregon State Parks Division privatization of camp grounds as fee access areas with their institutional ugliness.

There are not chain link fences with numbered spots where you pay for the day and open the door only to hit the neighbor! In fact, the only “improvements” most often added by W.U. are: an outhouse, for obvious reasons and in many areas, wooden picnic tables.

With land managers engaged in transforming public lands into pay-to-play Disney lands, the private sector has rushed in to fill the void.  I don't know about you, but I much preferred public lands the way they were before recreation became the business of the land management agencies.  
For those who can not quite recall when the US Forest Service actually took a wrong turn, here is a snippet quoted from a speech given by Undersecretary of Agriculture Jim Lyons in 1997. It is titled:
"VISIT US--COME AND ENJOY OUR BRAND OF OUTDOOR RECREATION" Recreation in the 21st Century: Increasing Demand, Increasing Recognition

We face some immediate and substantial challenges in this regard.
But, these challenges do afford us opportunities to explore new ways of doing business...
Opportunities to enhance partnerships with the private sector...
Opportunities to market our recreation products...
And make the Forest Service "BRAND NAME" stand for high quality outdoor recreation experiences, synonymous with our mission as an agency "Caring for the Land and Serving People", and equal--in the public's eye--to the kind of quality one comes to expect out of a...

 Coleman stove, or an
 REI parka, or a
 day at Disneyworld, or a
 run down one of the ski trails at Sun Valley

To me the opportunity is clear:  we want to make the Forest Service into the Microsoft of outdoor recreation, and we've already got a good start at doing just that because, as I said earlier, the Forest Service is the world's largest supplier of outdoor recreation annually.

 
Scott

What follows are the first few words of the comment letter submitted today to the National Park Service. To read the entire document, click here.

Wild Wilderness is a 501(c)(3) non-profit based in Bend Oregon. Our mission is to preserve and protect opportunities for low impact recreational activities on public lands. Created in 1991, Wild Wilderness has since 1997 spoken consistently about the efforts of Federal Land managers to "commercialize, privatize and motorize recreational opportunities on America's Public lands." We have similarly, and consistently, warned of the ongoing efforts of land managers, working at the behest of, and in conjunction with, the recreation, travel and tourism industries to affect "The Corporate Takeover of Nature and the Disneyfication of the Wild."

It is our opinion that the decision-makers for Yosemite National Park have been amongst the worst offenders and, if left to their own devices would further transform Yosemite, a prime example of "America's Best Idea," into a mere Popcorn Playground", to use a favorite expression of our national's foremost living National Parks champion, Michael Frome....

A version of the appended news article appears following every death on Mount Hood. I fear that with every such article we get closer to the day when Wilderness hikers will be required to carry locator beacons. If and when that happens, it will only be a matter of time before more sophisticated electronic devises are required. Those devices will have the ability to track Wilderness users as if they were collared wolves and, even more ominously, direct those users to and from specific areas in order to "better manage the resource."

Even more ominously, many Wilderness organizations will support the use of such devices. Some Wilderness users will welcome them.  Some will especially appreciate how those devices, employed in conjunction with Congestion Pricing, Reservations and similar tools,  will provide solitude, safety and predictably wonderful Wilderness Experiences.

The first step is requiring the use of beacons. From there, all else follows naturally.

Scott

   With November’s election results, New Mexico moved into a new era of possibilities for achieving our common environmental goals. While the list of needed actions is long, the need to transform management of the Valles Caldera National Preserve in the Jemez Mountains is a high priority. As I write, the VCNP is taking a truly perilous course and it will take a strong coalition of organizations to protect this “Yellowstone of New Mexico” from commercialization and development. We hope you will actively join us.

    Caldera Action is a 501(c)(3) organization founded in 2007 to advocate for the protection of the VCNP’s natural environment and to promote appropriate public access. We have a hard-working board that has studied the VCNP situation closely and we’ve drafted federal legislation to reform the VCNP. Naturally to succeed we need a full coalition of conservation, science and education groups to prevail upon a receptive Congress.

 In 2000 when the federal government purchased the VCNP a compromise was struck between those who didn't want more public land in New Mexico and those who wanted the VCNP protected as federal land with high environmental standards. Rather than setting up the Preserve under an agency, a "Trust" was created to manage the Preserve. This Trust basically is a "government corporation "overseen by a board of mostly private-sector Trustees. These Trustees supervise a staff and together they struggle under a mandate to become "financially self-sufficient" by 2015. No other piece of wildland has this management structure and, frankly, it's not working.

  The Trust is an “experiment” where the private sector was supposed to manage public lands better than federal agencies could.  Despite a strong mandate from Congress to protect the environment at the VCNP, more and more the Preserve is being run like a business with little regard for the public interest. The new executive director has stated that his job is to commercialize the Preserve to achieve financial self sufficiency. Soon, there may be proposals for lodges, golf, full-hookup campgrounds, and new paved roads plus high public fees. Expect all this to be rushed with an aggressive PR campaign and minimal compliance with federal law.

   Rather than entirely focusing on the actions of the VCNP Trustees, Caldera Action is taking a big picture view. We feel strongly that the whole Trust model is a failure and worse, it encourages privatization and the sort of commercial development on the VCNP that inspired the public to demand federal purchase back in 2000!

  In response, Caldera Action has submitted a draft bill to our congressional delegation seeking to have the VCNP transferred to the National Park Service as a Preserve. The restoration of the damaged ecology would continue, protection of headwaters of the Jemez River would be an emphasis, and the VCNP would become an accessible place of rare quality where people could have exceptional outdoor experiences in a well-protected environment.

Our legislation would:

• Replace the experimental public-private Trust with professional management under the National Park Service.  It will remove the unrealistic and unattainable financial self-sufficiency provision of the original Act.

• Guarantee the long-term protection of the Preserve’s natural and cultural heritage so that we can all experience the sense of wonder that comes from individual discovery of this unique and significant landscape.

• Mandate a Comprehensive Management Plan for the Preserve that will integrate resource protection, expanded public recreation, watershed restoration, scientific research and youth education, while maintaining the scientific adaptive management approach currently in place.

• Maintain and improve hunting and fishing opportunities offered on the property.

• Allow for limited domestic livestock grazing if consistent with the primary purposes of protecting natural and cultural resources, and educational, recreational, and scenic values.  It will remove the mandate to operate the Preserve as a working ranch.

• Foster sustainable economic development in surrounding communities through increased visitation and provision of visitor facilities and services.

• Achieve management efficiency and cost savings by sharing administrative, law enforcement, and resource management staffs with neighboring Bandelier National Monument and incorporate the upper watersheds of Alamo, Capulin and Sanchez Canyons into the Preserve.

    We feel strongly that the National Park Service is the best management agency for the VCNP given the Preserve’s national importance and the increasing demand for public access. The NPS manages 18 national preserves and a variety of other non-national park properties nation wide.

    Caldera Action will call you soon to meet with you to get your ideas, discuss our proposal, and your involvement with it. We hope you will help your membership get involved as we did for the Valle Vidal so we can rescue the VCNP early in the Obama administration.

Tom Ribe, President
www.caldera-action.org

(NOTE; Continue reading to view a related news article in which the business options for the Caldera are revealed.)

The Deschutes (DNF) and Ochoco National Forests of Central Oregon are co-managed and share a common budget. Numerous recreation sites on the DNF, including trailheads, boat ramps, campgrounds, picnic areas and more require the payment of a fee as authorized by the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act (FLREA). These sites accept both the Northwest Forest and the national America the Beautiful Passes.  No sites within the Ochoco NF accept either of these passes.

Walton Lake is a recreation site located on the Ochoco NF used by local fishermen, day-trippers and campers. Though publicly owned, access to this lake restricted to paying customers only. Walton Lake is managed by a company that describes itself in these words:

" Thousand Trails is the largest private system of RV camping and outdoor preserves in America."

Walton Lake is one of 169 publicly-owned recreation sites that are now operated by Thousand Trails.

Whereas FLREA prohibits the US Forest Service from charging entry fees, no such restriction is placed upon charging for facilities that have been effectively privatized.  Thousand Trails charges an "entry fee" at Walton Lake.

What's more, Walton Lake accepts neither the America the Beautiful or Northwest Forest Passes

It was recently reported that the Deschutes NF is considering spending $612,000 to upgrade the facilities at Walton Lake and is currently accepting public comment.

The annual budget for operation, maintenance and capital improvement for all of the developed recreation sites on the Deschutes and Ochoco National Forests is $149,828. Stated in a slightly different way, the cost of improvements proposed for Walton Lake, is more than four times the annual developed recreation budget for entire forest management unit.

One might reasonably ask  "why would the Forest Service spend so much money improving a privatized facility -- a facility from which they receive almost no revenue?"

<CONTINUES>

Is snow-kiting within Designated Wilderness a legally permissible activity? That question was raised recently in a front page article within my local newspaper and the local Forest Service chose to punt rather than answer the question.

I am confident that snow-kiting it is absolutely prohibited by the Wilderness Act and the laws, rules and regulations promulgated to carry out the original intent of that Act. I am only somewhat less confident that land managers at both the local and national level will sooner, rather than later, declare snow-kiting to be a prohibited activity within Wilderness.

In 1962, the author of the Wilderness Act wrote:

“The purpose of the Wilderness Act is to preserve the wilderness character of the areas to be included in the wilderness system, not to establish any particular use.”

Today, America's leading advocates for proper Wilderness management, Wilderness Watch, writes:

The overarching legal mandate of the Wilderness Act is to preserve the Wilderness character of each area in the NWPS. Preserving Wilderness character is the essential key to keeping alive the very meaning of wilderness in America.

For those unfamiliar with the new and growing sport of snow kiting, I've pulled together five short videos. When viewed in the order presented, they show a progression from the basic to the extreme.

Here they are. Watch them and decide whether this activity is compatible with YOUR concept of "wilderness character."

Scott

Snowkiting. Club Overpower
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTvEXqAhSRw
Video shows the basics of snow kiting on flatland

Best Snowkiten 2008
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gz71QRYwBs
Video shows a variety of kiting experiences

I've drawn the connection between higher gate fees and lower attendance so many times that I won't do so when introducing the appended article. It makes the point well enough. I would, however, ask you to ponder the following.

Imagine the political pressure National Park concessioners could exert to reduce park entrance fees if they concluded that today's sky-high entrance fees have been cutting into sales of rubber tomahawks, slurpies and popcorn.  They could exert as much pressure as they did when they lobbied Congress in support of giving the NPS authority to increase fees without limit.

Back then, concessionaires saw a opportunity to focus not upon the general admission crowd, but upon selling value-added experiences to those who could afford skybox prices. Back then, the generally accepted problem was  that "we were loving our parks to death." Reducing visitation was a priority and many interest groups cried out for higher fees as a way to solve the visitation problem.  Back then, the economy was booming and now it has gone bust. So what's next?

Will the Park Service and their tourism partners focus upon the skybox crowd or will they lower the price of admission in an effort to pack in the crowds more tightly and then sell them all the Bovrils and Pies they can consume? Or will they, after decades of mismanaging the National Park System, step back and try to determine where and how they went wrong? Will they use this opportunity to begin to put things right --- or is that asking too much?

Scott

On Monday and Tuesday, and from Thursday through Sunday, a walk in the Prescott National Forest costs five bucks. Same with a picnic by a lake or creek. Same with sitting and contemplating the universe. Six days a week, access to the forest is sold as a commodity.  Wednesdays, however, are fee-free.

WHY? Why would any National Forest give one entire day each week for enjoying the Great Outdoors free of charge? Most National Forests provided only two, three or maybe four free days in an entire year. The Prescott provides one free day in seven.  WHY?

My presumption is that the Prescott National Forest managers are either feeling generous or perhaps understand that there is a genuine equity issue with the fees. Perhaps they feel guilty knowing that the fees are exclusionary and discriminatory and that fees are keeping lower income persons from using the forests.

Or perhaps Prescott forest managers understand that the recreation fees they've been charging since the passage of the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act in 2005 (as a result of being tacked onto the Omnibus Appropriations Bill by the felonious Senator Ted Stevens) are not merely unpopular, the fees themselves are responsible for reduced visitation.

Perhaps they've figured out that the fees are alienating the tax-paying public. The fees may not simply be responsible for reduced visitation,  they could be reducing long-term support for adequately funding the forest recreation programs with tax dollars. Without such support, especially at with the economic crisis upon us,  appropriated funding will likely be cut. If that happens, we can expect the closure of non-profitable facilities and/or the privatization of those facilities that can be operated profitably.

Or, perhaps the Prescott NF is merely trying to lure additional visitors on Wednesdays so that they can report to Congress that annual visitation is not plunging --- as it is on forests from coast to coast.

I don't know why the Prescott offers free public access to the National Forest one day each week. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Scott

The Washington Time may not be my favorite media source, but I give them credit for doing a grand job of exposing the Forest Service's latest abuse of the law.

I also give credit to Kitty Benzar of Western Slope No-Fee Coalition for ferreting out and unraveling this interesting, and embarrassing, tale.

Read on to see what happens when forest managers imagine that the Federal Land Recreation Enhancement Act gave them the authority to turn tree cutting into a recreational activity.  These FS managers have the most extraordinary imaginations --- and so very little regard for either the law and for the public  ... or so it appears.

Scott

According to recent news articles, the USFS and NPS are scratching their heads while publicly saying: we haven't a clue why visitation is down so much.  They are likewise, and at every opportunity,  claiming that today's youths are no longer playing in nature, because they are addicted to videos -- and similar statements.

Frankly I think the agency people are being remarkably disingenuous.

Pasted below is a short article about a town council in Canada that seems to understand why their local kids aren't playing outdoors.  Is this relevant to our National Parks and Forests? You bet it is!

Scott

PS... here is a link to an 11/29 Associated Press article in which I am quoted.
 The headline reads:  "National Forest visitors down, no one knows why"

Things are seldom as they seem;
skim milk masquerades as cream.
            -W.S. Gilbert

The hypocrisy-laden, cynical gesture by Florida's State Park system described below requires no more of an introduction that this.

Scott

--- begin quoted ---

Florida waives park admissions fees on Sunday
July 11, 2008

MIAMI --  Florida's state parks are offering free admission on Sunday to celebrate "Recreation and Parks Month."

State officials hope this will encourage parents to peel their children away from televisions and computers, and expose them to the great outdoors.

Florida State Parks director Mike Bullock says children benefit from playing and developing a healthy relationship with nature.

The Sunshine State has 161 state parks.

Following the PR-frame created by the recreation/tourism industry, public land managers are aggressively promoting  "the Great Outdoors" as being a vital weapon in the "War on Childhood Obesity." The theory (or should I say, "the spin") is that with proper marketing and  private investment, nature can be remade into something sufficiently enticing to lure children from their couches and game consoles. Of course, it won't any longer be "nature" but, as the recreation/tourism industry never stops saying, children don't really like or appreciate nature . As the industry has been saying for nearly three decades,  "the Great Outdoors" must be transformed into something relevant to today's youth. In reality, and as I have said for a more than a decade,  the recreation/tourism is using children in their effort takeover control of outdoor recreation on the public lands.

Curiously enough, the recreation/tourism  lobbied  hard to erect the recreation fee barrier between children and nature. Without the ability to charge and retain fees for recreation on federally managed public lands, the industry could never hope to profit from the transformation of nature into a venue for the consumption of wreckreational products, goods and service.

The result, of course, has been the growing disconnect between children and nature and perhaps even some proportion of the childhood obesity epidemic. I would be giving  too much credibility to the recreation/tourism industry's spin if I were to suggest that there is more that a minor correlation between childhood obesity and the National Parks and forests. There are many factors involved and a much greater contributor to this problem is pay-to-play as applied to school sports!

In the USA, the response to this crisis has been to erect higher economic barriers. The governmental response has been to make public lands and public schools LESS public. The consequence has been that fewer children are getting exercise in natural, urban, and school settings.

Fortunately there are parts of the world where such idiocy is being questioned. Pasted below is an article from Canada in which the correct connections are drawn.

Scott

Daily progress is being made in the ongoing fight to end pay-to-play on the national forests and today I have good news to share. That said, I almost chose not to distribute the appended article because, in addition to reporting the news, it is larded with Forest Service misdirection. It concerns me that as Congress moves toward repeal of the Forest Service's fee-charging authority, the agency will likely respond with outright lies and deliberate deceptions.  Sorting fact from fantasy will become evermore difficult and your help will be vital in the task of grounding the issue to bedrock realities.

Eight years ago I wrote an essay titled, What would Thoreau say?  I'm providing a passage here and encourage you to read the entire, 650 word, piece.  It presents truths to which land management agencies have no honest rebuttal.

[As the cost of recreation rises toward its free-market potential, private sector investors will be encouraged to develop, through private/ public partnerships with federal agencies, an ever-wider array of commercialized recreation products. We, the customers, will be given the opportunity to purchase or to forgo these products in accordance with our willingness and/or our ability to pay. These newly created commodities will encompass not only those nature-based recreational activities that we have traditionally enjoyed on public lands. They will also include entirely new, and far more profitable, forms of 'eco-tainment', 'edu-tainment' and 'wreckre-tainment'. The result will be the Corporate Takeover of Nature and the Disneyfication of the wild.]

Regardless of anything the Forest Service says to the contrary this is, what Thoreau would call, "the hard bottom of rocks."

Scott

"Let us settle ourselves, and work and wedge our feet downward through the mud and slush of opinion, and prejudice and tradition, and delusion, and appearance, that alluvion which covers the globe...till we come to the hard bottom of rocks in place, which we can call reality."
      -Henry David Thoreau 

I know the 'Badlands' east of Bend well. Our Senator, Ron Wyden, is currently working to designate this area as 'Wilderness' and our town is heavily festooned with bright yellow lawn signs that loudly proclaim  - "Protect Badlands Wilderness".
 
Wild Wilderness chose not to take any position until we could read the language of the bill. Now that it's been introduced and having read it, it's my opinion that this bill is much improved compared to the Badlands legislation introduced two years ago. That said, I am not yet displaying a yellow sign in my front yard.
 
A decade ago, I wouldn't have hesitated to support just about any new Wilderness proposal. Today one can't ignore the fact that just because an area is designated as Wilderness doesn't ensure that the wildness of the place will be preserved. If one wants to get a clearer sense of how an area will likely be managed once designated, it's important to read the bill with care and to pay close attention to the associated buzz.
 
Appended are two items of buzz. The first  is a quote from Senator Wyden. The second is a online reader's comment to an article that appeared in our alternative media. I don't know the author, but knowing what I do about the Forest Service, the BLM, our local politicians, visitor's bureau and land managers, I appreciate the points he makes.

Scott
 

Do own a boat? Several boats, perhaps? How about a toy boat?

My wife, son and I own a motorized dingy.  We pay a registration fee for this boat, though there are years when it never sees the water. We're OK with that. We purchased this boat knowing it would need to be registered.

We also own three kayaks, an inflatable canoe and a small raft like the one picture here. These boats were cheap to purchase and none of them requires payment of a registration fee. That may soon change and I have a real problem with that!

Imagine having to pay an annual registration fee on that inflatable you purchased for the kids or on the old canoe you keep behind the garage in case friends come visiting.

Appended is an article about efforts to require the registration of non-motorized boats in Idaho, one of several states now considering similar fees.

Scott

The US Forest Service lost the authority to charge entrance fees in late 2004 when the recreation fee demonstration program was repealed and previous fee authority was replaced with the newly passed, and more restrictive,  Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement (FLREA).

Whereas under the authority of fee-demo, the Forest Service had almost unrestricted ability to charge fees of all kinds, here's what the language of the FLREA to says on this topic.

(2) PROHIBITED SITES.--The Secretary shall not charge an entrance fee for Federal recreational lands and waters managed by the Bureau of Land Management, the Bureau of Reclamation, or the Forest Service.

So, now knowing that the USFS may not charge an entrance fee, have a look at this one minute-long video taken at a USFS entrance fee station on the Deschutes National Forest.

The USFS is breaking the law. If challenged they would claim that what you saw in the video is not an "Entrance Station." They would claim that this is a convenience station and that they are making it easy for visitors who want to purchase recreation passes, to do so.

If a federal judge (or perhaps a Senator or Congressman)  were to watch this video, do you suppose the USFS could get away with such a bogus claim??

Scott