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

The American Recreation Coalition and the Forest Service have partnered up yet again. As part of ARC's upcoming Great Outdoors Lobby Week, on June 14th in Washington DC they will launch "National Get Outdoors Day". Many will see only the mask.

So let me be plain about this.  Public lands recreation policy was captured by the ARC in the early 90s and the USFS dances to the industry's drum beat.   The ARC is anathema to the cause of Wild Wilderness and our respect for the USFS is at a nadir. This new public-private campaign puts a smiley-faced mask in front of ARC's ugly face. I'm asking people to look behind the mask.

National Get Outdoors Day is the latest PR campaign of an unholy public-private alliance. The mission of the campaign has little to do with its stated purpose.

During Great Outdoors Week, ARC's wreckreation lobbyists will push their commercialization, privatization, motorization agenda. They will bestow honors upon federal employees who have served them unusually well. This year's recipient of their highest honor will be Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne.

Now with that introduction, please browse the list of organizations that have lined up in support National Get Outdoors Day (see below). On it you will find several of ARC's closest allies such as National Off-Highway Vehicle Conservation Council, Americans for Responsible Recreational Access, Recreation Vehicle Industry Association, ReserveAmerica, National Ski Areas Association and Tread Lightly. You will also find the names of all of this nation's federal public land management agencies.

You will also find on this same list the names of organizations not normally associated with anti-environmental causes.  Have some these organizations made a mistake? Or are some of us possibly mistaken in our own estimation of some of these groups??

Scott

PS... I encourage people to go to the official National Get Outdoors Day website   and to click upon the link at the bottom of the page — the link which says "Brought to you by..."

Dear Public Lands Supporter:

The two class action lawsuits filed on May 5 against the Forest Service in Arizona and Colorado are starting to draw media attention. Pasted below is one of the best, from the Tucson Weekly.

These are groundbreaking cases that seek to show the Forest Service has far exceeded its legal authority in the way it has implemented the fee programs at Mt Evans and Mt Lemmon. There are many more fee programs that are similar, and these cases will have an impact nationwide.

Thanks to those who have made donations to WSNFC earmarked for this effort, and please keep them coming. Donation info at our website.

Kitty Benzar, President
Western Slope No Fee Coalition
http://www.westernslopenofee.org

Yesterday I offered my congratulations to those dedicated, public-spirited activists who insisted that the National Park Service comply with environmental laws and manage Yosemite Valley and the Merced River corridor appropriately.

For almost a decade, Friends of Yosemite Valley (FoYV) and Mariposans for Environmentally Responsible Growth (MERG) have defended the public's interests against repeated assaults by the NPS. The courts have confirmed and reaffirmed the correctness of their position. With the decision handed down by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday, there can be no lingering doubt who was right and who was wrong.

The ramifications of this case are enormous. The Court in effect ruled that the "Wild and Scenic Rivers Act" of 1968 (WSRA) has teeth and that the English language meaning of the words of this act can not be ignored. The law can not be ignored by the NPS in relation to the Merced River. The law can not be ignored by other land management agencies in relation to other designated Wild and Scenic rivers.

Amongst other things the WSRA requires that the river corridor must be adequate protected, that the outstandingly remarkable values (ORVs) must be preserved, that a Comprehensive Management Plan (CMP) be written and adhered to and that the kinds and amounts of public use that can be sustained without adversely impacting the resource be established, monitored and enforced.

As I said, the ramifications are enormous.

<CONTINUES>

Congratulations are in order for everyone associated with yesterday's big win for Yosemite National Park.

Yesterday, the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeal dismissed the National Park Service's appeal of a 2006 decision that had found the agency deficient in their plans to protect, and appropriately manage, the Wild and Scenic Merced River. Quoting from the appended article as it appeared in today's San Francisco Chronicle,

[The plaintiffs were led by a local organization called Friends of Yosemite Valley, which said the government's plans would lead to commercialization of the park and turn it into a playground mainly for wealthy lodgers, people driving recreational vehicles and visitors arriving in tour buses...

The federal agency "has failed to take the steps necessary to make sure the river is given as much attention as the concessionaires' profits," said Peter Frost, attorney for American Rivers, a conservation group that sided with the plaintiffs.]

Today's Park Service managers have come to see themselves as just another cog in the global tourism industry. They act as if charged with the task of facilitating ever-more commercialization, privatization and motorization of America's Crown Jewels.

The Park Service caters to the wants and whims of the travel industry, the recreation vehicle industry and commercial outfitters. They've done so for decades, and things have gone from bad to worse since Congress, in 1996, passed the Recreation Fee Demonstration Program  and, by so doing, gave the Park Service financial incentive to harm the lands entrusted to their care.

The Department of Interior threw at this case every high powered lawyer at their disposal. Even so, a small group of magnificent grassroots activists and environmental lawyers prevailed. Their win is our win. They won this case for Yosemite, for you, for me and for future generations.

The court's ruling is available HERE.
Scott

Black is White. War is Peace. Loss is GAIN — and the joke is on us.

Here is an excerpted quote from the appended article which recently appeared in the Santa Fe New Mexican. The complete article is appended.

If you want to bicycle, hike or watch birds in the state-run wildlife areas after April 1, it's going to cost you. Non-hunting and non-fishing visitors will have to pay to play, view and enjoy 28 wildlife, wildfowl and camping areas managed by the Department of Game and Fish, according to department spokesman Marty Frentzel. The new permit is part of the department's Gaining Access Into Nature or GAIN program.

       
Folks should understand that virtually all non-consumptive nature-based activities are currently being commodified so that they can be sold. For example, watching birds and other animals has been branded as the value-added "Watchable Wildlife" product. It was, until recently, possible to watch birds without having to pay a fee. Now to gain access one must pay a "Gaining Access Into Nature" fee.

Is this a GAIN? Does anyone believe that GAIN will promote appreciation of, respect for, and an enhanced desire to protect nature? Or do new programs such as GAIN simply put nature onto the same playing field as Disneyland and other entertainment commodities?

GAIN may be a pain but more importantly, GAIN is a LOSS.

Scott

George Orwell once wrote - "Omission is the most powerful form of lie" and today the US Forest Service is guilty of that lie.

Those who read Orwell's Animal Farm know how the farm animals would scratch their head in wonder as what had been clear and unambiguous Commandments written upon the barn wall seemed to change in the night.  "No animal shall sleep in a bed" became "No animal shall sleep in a bed with sheets".  "No animal shall kill another animal" became "No animal shall kill another animal without reason" and, most famous of all,  "All animals are equal" became "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."


The law which grants the USFS authority to charge, collect and retain recreation fees says the following:

The Secretary may use not more than an average of 15 percent of total revenues collected under this Act for administration, overhead, and indirect costs related to the recreation fee program by that Secretary.

In the appended article from yesterday's Southern Illinosian and in countless similar references, the US Forest Service is now claiming that they may use no more than 15% of total revenues collected to cover the costs of fee collection.

The difference between what the law requires and the agency's new interpretation of the law, is as great as the difference between the original Commandments and those rewritten by the pigs in the dead of night.

I encourage you to read the appended article online at the link provided and to read the comments that your fellow barnyard animials have posted.

Scott 

Today's post is unusual. It was something I shared earlier in the day with a group of peers who are themselves expert in the field of National Park management. It was a response to a post on the NationalParksTraveler website and it assumes a high level of familiarity with park management and related issues. It was my call to experts to step away from the the trendy, hot, news items now appearing on the topics of declining park visitation, videophillia, Nature Deficit Disorder and to rationally ask the question -- "What the hell is going on?"

For those who do not read past this introduction, please understand that the stories you have been reading about National Parks in the media are largely fabricated spin. To get to the truth, you need to get past the spin. we must,  as Thoreau said;

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.

Continue reading if you'd like to try and get closer to reality.

Scott

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

The Umatilla National Forest, located in the Blue Mountains of southeast Washington and northeast Oregon, has proposed charging recreation fees at new 39 sites as a follow-up action to their Recreation Site Facility Master Planning analysis. This is merely a "proposed action" --- in much the same was as the Umatilla RS-FMP was only an "analysis". Let's be straight, what is "proposed" is a foregone conclusion.

Pasted below are excerpts of today's announcement in the Federal Register. What I'd like to draw your attention to is the Forest Service's claimed 'justification' for charging new access fees at 17 trailheads.

When the old, entirely unrestricted,  fee-demonstration program became the new RAT (Recreation Access Tax) in late 2004, Congress thought it was raising the threshold for charging fees. Congress believed that it was stopping the FS from charging access fees simply because they could. Congress' defined the minimum level of development at a recreation site that could possibly warrant the charging of fees and prohibited the charging of fees where this standard was not met. The intent was to prevent the FS for charging for simple access or imposing a fee upon those who merely wished to enjoy a walk in the woods.

Unfortunately Congress set the bar low and gave the FS too many loopholes through which they could squeeze. The result is what we are now seeing.

Today, next week and the months and years to come UNLESS the RAT is repealed, the FS will be add 39 fees sites here, 25 there and thousands more scattered everywhere.  The FS will claim, as they have below,  that these new sites merit being fee-sites BECAUSE the are just like other fee-sites. They will justify the amount of the fee by saying that other recently created fee-sites charge that much. They will rationalize the imposition of additional trailhead fees on the basis of having added, or being prepared to add,  a cheap sign-board, a picnic table and a trashcan. The trail itself, which is the very reason and perhaps the ONLY reason for using a trailhead, will remain unmaintained or, at best, maintained by volunteers. 

Although this will be the future unless action is taken by the public, it need not be the future.  Legislation has been introduced that will repeal the RAT (S.2438). To learn more, click here.

Scott 

The Director and his students stood for a short time watching a game of Centrifugal Bubble-puppy. Twenty children were grouped in a circle round a chrome-steel tower. A ball thrown up so as to land on the platform at the top of the tower rolled down into the interior, fell on a rapidly revolving disk, was hurled through one or other of the numerous apertures pierced in the cylindrical casing, and had to be caught.

'Strange.' mused the Director, as they turned away, 'strange to think that even in Our Ford's day most game were played without more apparatus than a ball or two and a few sticks and perhaps a bit of netting. Imagine the folly of allowing people to play elaborate games which do nothing whatever to increase consumption. It's madness. Nowadays the Controllers won't approve of any new game unless it can be shown that it requires at least as much apparatus as the most complicated of existing games.' He interrupted himself.  

                  -- Aldous Huxley, Brave New World 1932

Some will say that the appended Editorial from today's Chinese press is of no relevance to America's National Parks and other public lands. Some might ask, "Of what possible relevance is the announcement that Communist China has stopped charging entrance fees at public museums under the jurisdiction of cultural authorizes?

The answer is PLENTY!

Try to read this short Editorial not as if it were about Chinese museums, but as if it were about American parks, forests and other open spaces where free access is being phased out and where market-pricing is being phased in.

Is there some part of this Editorial with which you disagree?  I could find none.

Scott

Some enviros (and some who are quite the opposite, such as Rep. Fred Girod (R-Slayton)) like the idea of turning Oregon's Silver Falls State Park into a National Park. I don't.

A friend and fellow Oregonian who happens to be a NPS retiree, shared with me his opinion. He said:

"Trying to turn Silver Falls over to the feds is one of the three stupidest ideas Oregon ever came up with. 1. lower gas taxes and take the money away from state parks and OSP. 2. The Kick yourself in the ass tax rebate 3. trying to turn silver falls over. 4 would have been 1. with measure 37, but we shot that in the ass, only wounding it, but it's a start."

Pasted below is a letter to the editor by someone intimately familiar with this particular park. She begins:

"I think Rep. Girod is really barking up the wrong tree! If he had more facts regarding the park itself, he would not be trying to do this."

I hope those who would transfer Silver Falls, or would consider transferring other public lands, to the NPS will carefully read the LTE which appears below. The author doesn't hit all the bases, but she makes a good start.

Scott 

For nearly twenty years, the American Recreation Coalition has held two major events each year wherein they instruct federal land managers how to run America's public lands. Each year,  the ARC creates a new rhetorical frame to which the land managers adapt, sing and dance.

This year's theme is "More Kids in the Woods". It's not exactly new, but it is very effective. It is unusually effective because it appears to be so apple-pie.

In reality, the ARC's  Kids in the Woods frame dates to the time when the ARC and that great environmental villain, Senator Frank Murkowski,  conceived their "Recreation Super-Bill" --- a major legislative effort designed to transform the Great Outdoors into the great wreckreational playground. Murkowski's super-bill was stillborn, but it was unneeded. The land management agencies operating under the ARC's directive  have all but accomplished the wreckreation agenda without need of authorizing legislation.

The Partners Outdoors 2008 meeting ended yesterday. Beginning on Tuesday of this week, seventy five leaders of industry and seventy five high level land management agencies yucked it up at Utah's Snowbird Resort. Today those land mangers return to the important tasks of implementing the newest instructions handed down by ARC's President, Derrick Crandall. Come August, the public and private sectors will meet again for the ARC's "Great Outdoors Week." There will be many high level meetings in between.

For many years I have referred to Partners Outdoors by its more appropriate name "Collusion Outdoors." My reports are available on the Wild Wilderness website www.wildwilderness.org/docs/po.htm

Today the Forest Service placed upon its website a 6 minute video depicting Chief Kimball and the Head of Recreation, Jim Bedwell, giving their welcoming presentation. If you look closely, you can almost see the strings controlling their wooden limbs and passive mouths.

To learn more about this year's event, click here.

Scott