Here's an article that's so explicit it needs little introduction other than to say that it is incredibly important and foretells the future with almost perfect clarity.

In the months to come, you will be reading many similar tellings of this story. It is a story about the radical makeover now being executed as part of an effort to boost National Park visitation/ revenues and convert America's once proud Crown Jewel's into increasingly commercialized, privatized and common tourism destinations.

Scott

Imagine the still-warm body of outdoor recreation lying in a puddle of blood upon the ground. Standing over the body is the  Bureau of Land Management holding a red-hot smoking gun. Imagine that clear motives  for the crime have already been well established.  Such a crime scene exists today.

http://www.wildwilderness.org/docs/takeover.htm
Traditional, rustic, passive and contemplative outdoor experiences must yield to highly developed recreation as Nature is transformed into a suitable playground for the spectacle of 'themed' and 'action oriented' entertainment. There is no money to be made in allowing the public access to Nature simply "as an amenity" or as "something extra we are privileged to enjoy." Free access must be eliminated because it would otherwise compete with commercial ventures and would hurt the bottom line.

 

As the cost of recreation rises toward its free-market potential, private sector investors will be encouraged to offer an ever wider array of commercialized recreation 'products'. We, the 'consumer', 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 the we have traditionally enjoyed on public lands. They will also include entirely new, far more profitable forms of 'eco-tainment', 'edu-tainment' and 'wreckre-tainment.

1. Public lands recreation must become self-supporting.  

2. Public recreation will be priced competitively with private alternatives.

3. Funds will be preferentially spent near urban centers.

4. 'Under-utilized' resources will be developed to facilitate increased usage.

5. Partnerships with private corporations shall be sought and encouraged.

6. 'Nature Interpretation' will be emphasized.

7. Scenic Roads and Byways will be designated and actively promoted.

8. New and imaginative methods of doing business will be encouraged.

9. Land-swaps will be a preferred mechanism for acquiring desired lands.

10. Wherever practical or feasible, the management of recreation resources will be turned over to private concessionaires.

 "The intent of the program is to encourage private development of public recreation facilities such as: marinas, hotel/ motel/ restaurant complexes, conference centers, RV camping areas, golf courses, theme parks, and entertainment areas with shops, etc."

The President and the tourism industry have for purely self-serving economic and political reasons begun bragging of their supposed interest in making America's National Parks more accessible to non-traditional park users, especially Hispanics, people of color and those with limited incomes. Their actions belie their deeds. They are hypocrites and deceivers and they are using these underserved populations to advance entirely undemocratic objectives.

Quoted from appended article about impending entrance fee increases for Yosemite National Park:

 ["I think it's totally wrong," she said. "They are continuing to price non-affluent Americans out of the park." That "non-affluent" group, Mosley said, includes Hispanics, blacks and lower-income people. "Twenty-five bucks is a lot of money, especially for people on fixed incomes," she said. "Do you buy a gate pass or do you pay your water bill or buy medicine?" ... Craig Maxwell called the new gate fee "illogical." "Visitation is down, so you raise rates?" he said. ]

Logic, unfortunately, has no bearing on the pay-to-play debacle. The issue is about ideology, profitability hypocrisy, deception and deceit. The President's new found interest in the National Parks is, I suggest to you, more deception than truth. As for the tourism industry's interest, it is about profitability and nothing more.

Scott 

Some of the most dramatic transformations in the delivery of outdoor recreation are soon to place upon public lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management.

Pasted below is the text of a presentation the BLM's Acting Director James Hughes recently delivered to a gathering of motorized recreation industry insiders. The list of sponsors appears at the end of this message. What you'll see is pretty much the short list of those organizations which control outdoor policy on America's public lands today. The American Recreation Coalition's name is missing from the list, but considering that the "Recreation Exchange" is their venue and that the appended document comes from ARC's website, ARC's dominant role should be accepted as a given.

As important as this document is, I'm offering it a bit of a teaser for the next document I will lay upon you. The next one is The Smoking Gun... so stay tuned.

If you'd like to share your own thoughts and concerns with the BLM's Mr. Hughes, the ARC has thoughtfully provided contact information for your use.

Scott

by Skyblu
(Click here to go to Skyblu's Website and read her many other postings.)

Now that the National Park Service has turned Yellowstone over to concessionaires in the winter, it's time to plan to do the same for the summer.

The winter use plan in Yellowstone is about finalized and it is going to accomplish two things that the National Park Service has always wanted: 1) Limit visitation to only the richest people & 2) encourage and subsidize privatization by commercial interests.

Now that a trip to Old Faithful costs about $100 per person it's time to make sure that the summer-time pays it's way too. After all, if visitation is down & entrance fees are up - and still the poor people don't come - something has to be done.

A recent post by Jim Macdonald in THE MAGIC OF YELLOWSTONE sees the possibilities. Continued expansion of private funding, continued exploitation of wage slaves, and continued neglect of park resources and facilities are envisioned - unless we act.

Sadly, he sees not see enough. With a bit of creativity we can turn Yellowstone into a first class operation and let the NPS have all the credit. All we have to do is look to see how far down the path we have already come.

Monopoly is the key to a really classy park. Conoco already has a monopoly on the service stations. By pretending that the other two concessionaires own YPSS there is only one brand of gasoline available. And they are going to keep it that way by bribing the Yellowstone Park Foundation.

It's time to get off the dime and look for the dollars. The American Public deserves the best. We should allow professionals to run the park.

Yesterday I made a posting which I titled -- "Notes" - a document to boil your blood" . I claimed that it was an extraordinary document and I am still discovering how extraordinary it really is.

On page 28 of "Notes",  US Forest Service Director of Recreation and Heritage Resources Jim Bedwell, made a statement that particularly caught my attention because he was clearly speaking about me personally. Bedwell wrote:

 "Context - opposition is stitching these issues together and creating a big story:   travel management, fees, and rec site facility master planning. People are saying that the 3 work together to keep people out of the woods.  As we continue to give messages on all of these we emphasize that we have a commitment to recreation in the FS. Recreation and ecological restoration are the 2 pillars of the FS future."

YES, in combination, these three issues make an enormous story. Their combined impact upon outdoor recreation and the changes they will usher in are difficult to exaggerate. If Bedwell is denying the connection of these three issues, or if he was suggesting that within the highest rungs of USFS these issues are not intimately connected, then I have just caught Mr. Bedwell telling an enormous lie.

Let me be as clear as possible. Travel Management Planning, Recreation User Fees and Recreation Site Facility Master Planning are the three most important USFS recreation issues that exist today. Fortunately, you needn't take my word for that.

Here is a quote from the American Recreation Coalition's reporting of a meeting they hosted on October 7, 2006 in which Chief Bosworth was their honored guest. I provided full details within days of its occurrence and invite you to now read or perhaps re-read ARC's account of this historic meeting. 

Every so often, a member of the general public (i.e., a citizen and taxpayer) obtains access to an extraordinary document. Here is a link to one such extraordinary document in Word Format. (and here is a link to the document in PDF format)
 
In the next day or two, I will be sharing another even more extraordinary document from the Bureau of Land Management ... but let's, for the moment, focus upon this document from the US Forest Service. It is titled -
  "Notes from the National Communications / Legislative Affairs Conference on the 110th Congress-January 2007."

 
  "Notes" provides a clear view, revealing how the men and women we pay to manage our public lands speak about us citizens being our backs. "Notes" lets us see how they conspired to screw us using the very tax dollars and user-fees we have provided. "Notes" is a damning document. May Jim Bedwell, Joel Holtrop and the other forest service personnel whose arrogance is exposed in "Notes",  feel the heat of our anger.
 
"Notes" is a 37 page document. Many would benefit from reading it though few are likely to do so. For those who'd be content to read what NewWest writer Bill Schneider had to say about just one of the many revelations contained within Notes, his article appears below.
 
For those who would prefer the full-meal-deal,  "Notes" will make a satisfying read.

Scott
 

Today, President Bush diverted attention from his failed Presidency to promote his deceptive National Parks Centennial Initiatve. It is a plan conceived in partnership with and largely for the benefit of, the travel/tourism industry. It is a program intended to yield to the private sector great say in how, and for what purposes, America's National Parks are managed.
 
Pasted below is the Whitehouse's propaganda backgrounder issued moments ago.
 
In recent days I've brought together on this website a very different and far more revealing backgrounder.  I would pit my backgrounder against the President's,  any day of the week.
 
That said, there is value in the Whitehouse's version, deceptive as it may be. Have a good close look at the names of those of the roundtable with whom the President discussed the fate of America's National Parks System this morning. Cross reference those names on the Wild Wilderness website and the threat posed to our Crown Jewels should become quite obvious. 

Scott 

In tomorrow's news and in news to follow, you will be reading many articles that speak of the President Bush's efforts to revitalize National Park Funding and to move the National Park System toward a glorious 2016 Centennial. You will read about additional park funding being requested in the President's budget, about efforts to promote additional public private partnerships, about efforts to boost volunteerism, about efforts to stem the decline in park visitation and attract more visitors to the parks---  and much more.

Some of what you'll be reading will be smoke and mirrors.  Much of what you'll be reading will be further confirmation of the ongoing efforts of this administration to radically transform the National Park System in ways that make it less public, more commercial and increasingly tolerant of motorized, industrialized, tourism and wreckreation.

Unfortunately, many will be fooled by the President's rhetoric --- including some within the conservation community.

Fortunately, many will not be fooled --- including Congressman Nick Rahall, Chairman of the Committee on Natural Resources.

Pasted below is a news release issued today by Rahall's office. I'll have more to say on this topic in response to the expected flood of articles.

Scott 

Quoted from the appended article about the ever more contentious Recreation Site Facility Master Planning Process and the proposed closing down of perhaps thousands of campgrounds nationwide:

[(Deputy chief of the Forest Service) Holtrop emphasized that recreation facility planning is not a decision process. Rather, it is an analysis tool, and therefore is not subject to the national environmental policy act's environmental impact statement requirement.]

There are two problems with this statement.

Firstly, whatever analytical value the RS-FMP had was negated when the USFS inappropriately applied their "Multiply by Zero Fiddle". By arbitrarily zeroing out the ranking score of unfavored facilities, the analytical process was turned into a frightful waste of taxpayer's money.

Secondly, and contrary to Holtrop's assertion, NEPA and other environmental laws apply. Before the USFS goes bulldozing any more campgrounds they had better start paying attention to the laws that they are breaking.

  That's not a threat. That's merely a friendly reminder letting the USFS know that they are pissing off a great many recreating Americans and to inform them that there are many in Congress who are weary of their incompetence and arrogance. When the USFS starts over, it will behoove them to do things, and get things, right.

Scott 

In recent weeks, Yosemite Valley has been in the news a great deal and a group of activists known as Friends of Yosemite Valley  have come under enormous fire. Park spokesman Scott Gediman, in an article published just days ago in the San Francisco Chronicle, portrayed FoYV as a "fringe group pushing a radical agenda".  I hate to have to say this, but park officials lie and Gediman should be ashamed of himself.

Pasted below is another article on this topic, also published in the San Francisco Chronicle. This one was written by David Brower and it speaks a truth we all need to remember.

The National Park Service is most of the way through a radical transformation begun more than twenty years ago. Our once proud parks are well on their way to becoming commercial theme parks. The Park Service's once proud employees are now demoralized and have been beaten down to the point that they will brutalize anyone who dares reminds them that THEY are at least partially to blame for the downfall of our park system.

Were David Brower alive today, Gediman would have held his tongue --- for Brower was FoYV's friend, and to his dying day vigorously supported FOYV's work. Brower died on November 5, 2000 and his commentary was published three weeks later. May Brower's words forever haunt Gediman and anyone else engaged in perpetuating "The Corporate Takeover of Nature and the Disneyfication of the Wild."

Scott 

A few days ago the American Recreation Coalition posted an invitation on their website which was addressed to "ARC's Members and Our Partners". According to the announcement, the ARC in conjunction with the National Forest Foundation and the US Forest Service are seeking input on "access to recreation opportunities and the needs of America's youth...."

Now I know you are probably not an ARC member. In fact, if you are receiving this message from Wild Wilderness, chances are high that your input is neither desired nor being solicited.

But as a public lands stakeholder with interest in the management of America's public lands, your voice should count as much as that of any of ARC's "members and partners". There's no reason why you shouldn't be permitted to participate in this process. It's not written in stone that the USFS must take it's marching orders from the ARC, though the incestuous relationship that has long existed between the ARC and the USFS often does look more like a marriage than the rape which it is.

As for the equally cozy relationship between the ARC and NFF, please be aware that until February 24, 1995, ARC's President, Derrick Crandall, was also the President of the NFF.  I suppose that's polygamy and may even be legal in some states.

Pasted below it the ARC's invitation and a link where additional information can be found. Perhaps you'd like to participate or you know some else who might wish to do so.

Scott

PHOTO: Deputy Secretary of Interior, Steve Griles takes time for a picture with ARC's June 10th Volunteer Work Day Coordinator, Carolyn Crandall.

"No matter how cynical you get,
it is impossible to keep up."
         - Lily Tomlin

Quoted from appended article:

 [ Holtrop stressed multiple times in a briefing for reporters Friday that the facilities master plan isn't designed with quotas in mind for closure of facilities. The agency isn't trying to cut a specific amount from its budget, he claimed.]

Speaking of "specific amounts", I've put online an internal USFS document first circulated on 1/22/07. It is titled "Forest Service Realignment" -- and it is dynamite. Here's a short quote:

 [ As we move forward with our restructuring effort, the Forest Service will need to reduce operating costs of the Washington Office (WO) and Regional Offices (RO) by approximately 25% (reduced from the FY2006 baseline) by the end of FY 2009.]

To access the complete document, click here.

Scott

 A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people. -John F. Kennedy

Guest Opinion:
Americans Must Reclaim Ownership of National Forests

A recent front-page story in the Denver Post described Recreation Site Facility Master Planning, a USDA-Forest Service internal policy initiative that has thousands of recreation sites slated for closure nationwide.

There are a number of important issues that were not addressed in the article.

RSFMP is a policy that threatens to impose a for-profit model on the management of America's national forests. As one agency official put it, "In our development sites, we've been told they need to pay for themselves or we need to get rid of them."

The Western Slope No-Fee Coalition estimates that RSFMP will close or decommission between 3,000 and 5,000 recreation sites. Many of these sites will be gated and no longer accessible.

Closures already have begun on some forests, with little or no public notice. So has decommissioning, including the removal of drinking water systems, picnic tables, toilets and fire rings.

But closure and decommissioning are only one aspect of RSFMP. The policy also calls for turning many sites over to private sector partners to manage.

According to one Forest Service recreation manager, the agency has adopted a "No Partner, No Potty" policy that threatens to close hundreds of facilities because they can't attract a corporate manager. Thousands more are slated for increased fees, new fees and reduced operating seasons.

   <CONTINUES> 

Until 2004, all of Oregon's Congressional Representatives (4 Democrats and Republican Greg Walden) were united in their opposition to Fee-Demo. All had, for several years, endorsed Wild Wilderness' effort to kill Fee-Demo. It appeared as if we were about to succeed in bringing about the end of that unpopular program until something terrible happened.  Richard Pombo became Chairman of the House Resources Committee and Greg Walden got ambitions to Chair the Forest Subcommittee under Pombo.  Next thing you know Walden got his Chair, Pombo got Walden's support for the Recreation Access Tax (aka, the RAT) and the American people got the shaft.

Fast forward to 2007.

Pombo's history, Walden is in the minority, park visitation (which began declining when Fee-Demo was enacted) has become a national issue and today the price of access to public lands is shooting through the roof, as we knew it would.

The good news is that Greg Walden has just now joined with Representative Peter DeFazio in opposing the proposed re-doubling of the price of admission to Crater Lake National Park (see appended article).  The good news is that it is absolutely not too late to abolish the unpopular RAT.

Let's recall that the Pombo's RAT never received a vote in the House and was not so much as introduced as legislation in the US Senate. In 2004, the RAT was forced onto "must pass" legislation by Senator Ted Stevens and Richard Pombo in spite of intense BIPARTISAN objection. Today Stevens is no longer Chairman of the all-powerful Appropriations Committee and Pombo has been put to pasture. The ever-unpopular RAT can now be killed though BIPARTISAN cooperation. I encourage you to please help make that happen.

Scott

PS... With regard to the price of recreation shooting through the roof ... let's recall that Ronald Reagan proposed defunding the NPS and giving them authority to charge and retain fees. Regan explicitly stated that the purpose was not merely to made the public lands self-funding without reliance upon tax-dollars, but that the purpose was to intentionally raise the cost of access to public lands so that public lands would not compete unfairly with private recreation alternatives. You can read it in the New York Times, 1982

The appended Washington Post article begins with these words:

 [ A U.S. government agency is considering using unmanned surveillance planes, or drones, to help oversee remote areas of eastern Idaho....]

When you read on, you discover that conservationists apparently support this idea while ranchers see this as being "like the environmentalists sneaking up on you." I ask that we get beyond the usual polarizations and give this matter some thoughtful consideration.

The idea of the BLM monitoring the backcountry using unmanned surveillance drone scares the heck out of me.  It is a mere baby-step removed from monitoring the Wilderness with identical spy-planes. If the former is considered acceptable, than surely there are many reasons to say that the later is also acceptable.

While we're at it ... what about using unmanned surveillance planes or drones to monitor ATVers and snowmobilers? 

This is a slippery slope upon which we should not step ---
     --- especially not at this time.

Scott

 "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."   
       -William Pitt the Younger (1759-1806) 

As outlined in the article below Senator Baucus of Montana has taken a strong stand on the new fees and other changes to the Forest Service's recreation program under the Recreation Site Facility Master Plan. According to the Senator's spokesperson "the senator vows that the increased fees will never come to fruition" and “However, this proposal, at first glance, is ludicrous, because Max doesn’t think that the Forest Service should balance its budget on the backs of Montanans who take their kids hunting, fishing and camping on our public lands".
 
With the Forest Service planning to eliminate many of your favorite picnic areas, trails, and campgrounds while increasing fees at those areas that remain it is time to ask your Congresspersons and Senators to weigh in to protect the public's interest in public lands. Congress needs to take a hard look at where these Full Cost Recovery recreation policies are heading.
 
Over the coming days, weeks and months the Western Slope No-Fee Coalition will be asking will be asking individuals, originations and local governments to get involved by contacting their Congressional representatives asking them to hold oversight hearings and take legislative action to: 

*Roll back the Recreation Site Facility Master Planning process in the Forest Service. This program promises to eliminate thousands of recreation sites, reduces operating seasons, increases fees, creates new fee sites and turns hundreds more sites over to concessionaires. The RSFMP turns the Forest Service recreation program into a taxpayer funded "For-Profit" venture that forces Americans away from the forests and damages local economies. 

*Repeal the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act (FLREA) for the BLM, Forest Service, Bureau of Reclamation, Fish & Wildlife Service and NPS. While the fee program remains extremely countenance, the agencies continue charge the public outside of the authority of the FLREA. Incentives created by the FLREA are the driving force behind policies such as the RSFMP.
For more on BLM and Forest Service FLREA Implementation click here.
  
 This includes repealing the new $80 "America The Beautiful Pass" which is pricing the public out of visiting our Parks and other public lands. Others in Congress question the new Pass :

"critics of the fee hike, including Sen. Craig Thomas, R-Wyo., questioned the high cost of the pass. "An $80 fee is certainly higher than what folks should have to pay to recreate on federal lands," Thomas said. Thomas, the outgoing Senate Parks Subcommittee chairman, said he opposed expanding the recreation fee beyond the national parks to other federal land management agencies, which will result in higher fees with no guarantee of improving the impacted recreation sites. "If there's a budget problem in our land management agencies, let's get to the root of it, address it head-on, and not put budget shortfalls on the back of recreational visitors," said Thomas. (Jackson Hole Star)

*Limit the cost of National Park entrance fees. Park fees are doubling further driving visitation down. This has been highlighted in a recent letter from Congressman Peter Defazio to the Department of the Interior concerning increased fees and lost spending priorities.
 
*Audit the agencies budgets and mandate that 75% of Congressionally appropriated recreation funding gets to the ground. The Forest Service, for instance, has had its recreation funding increase 22% over the last decade while according to local FS managers local funding has decreased by 50% in some cases. The WSNFC currently estimates that, at best, as little as 18% of Congressionally appropriated funding for Forest Service recreation actually gets to the ground. 

Its been two years since the FLREA was attached as a rider on a spending bill. All the public has to show for it is agency policies that are pricing the public out of THEIR public lands, policies that replace appropriated funding with fees at the local level, agencies that think they are above the law in charging fees and decommissioning of thousands of recreation campgrounds, picnic areas and trails.
 
We applaud Senator Baucus, Senator Thomas, Rep. Defazio and others for their stand on fees and the RSFMP. For those of you in Montana, Wyoming and Oregon you might want to contact the Senators Baucus and Thomas as well as Rep. Defazio to give support. For those that live elsewhere, please start contacting your elected officials. Ask them to oversee and restore the public in public land.
  
For more information go to: http://www.westernslopenofee.org 
 
Robert Funkhouser, President
Western Slope No-Fee Coalition

It seems as though the Army Corps can't go more than about 12 months before the next scandal befalls it. With Katrina now more than a year old, the Corps was overdue. Here are the fixin's of what could become the Corps latest misadventure.

Why would any federal agency, in this case the Army Corps of Engineers, forego collecting recreation fees to which they are absolutely entitled and do so without APPARENT motivation or return? Why would they cut their revenue streams at a time when the disappearance of recreation funding has become such a critical issue??

As the appended press release from the Army Corps makes plain, they have just announced that they will be participating in one aspect of the controversial Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act. They will be providing a 50% reduction on camping fees to those Seniors (those over 62)  who have purchased the new America the Beautiful Pass (ATB), to those Americans with permanent disabilities and to those who have earned a pass by volunteering the requisite 500 hours. This is not necessarily a bad thing, yet please consider the following:

The Army Corps was not included in the legislation that authorized the America the Beautiful Pass. Only the NPS, USFS, FWS, BoR and BLM were authorized to be part of the ATB program .

The Army Corps will not be selling the ATB pass because they are not authorized to do so. The Army Coprs will not receive revenues from the sale of ATB passes, because Congress did not authorize them to participate in the program. The Army Corps has chosen, without any apparent authority, to voluntarily lose money. Why?

In a nutshell, the Army Corps and the American Recreation Coalition enjoy a relationship that some might described as "collusional". The America the Beautiful Pass which went on sale this week is the creation of the American Recreation Coalition. The ARC, for various reasons that are not in the public's interests, wants their pass to succeed. It appears that the ARC has gotten the Army Corps to commit a number of seemly unethical acts and possibly illegal acts.

To learn more, GOOGLE for the combination "American Recreation Coalition" and "Army Corps" then start reading. If you want to read only one article, here's the link to follow.

Scott
 

Traditional car-camping is under increasing attack by the US Forest Service. Targeted for closure, decommissioning or privatization are those primitive, low-cost, minimally-developed camp-grounds most highly favored by locals.

Pasted below is a  very informative new article from Washington State's Methow Valley. Here are two passages quoted from that article:

 "A lot of the sites they are going to close are the unimproved sites that are the favorites of locals," said Perrow. "When we're out camping, we don't need hot running water and flush toilets - that's not what we're about in the Methow." Perrow said she believes the RSFMP inventory is being conducted so the Forest Service can close down recreation sites that don't make money. She said it seems to her as if the process is being conducted "on the sly."

---

 Currently in the Okanogan and Wenatchee National Forests, 80 of the approximately 160 campgrounds charge fees, and 102 of roughly 140 (or 73 percent) of the major trailheads charge fees. Isabelle Spohn of Twisp said she is concerned the RFSMP will result in more new fees and the closure of many free recreation sites that Methow locals have been visiting for decades. "The irony is that a lot of people have stopped going to the national forests because of all the user fees, so now the Forest Service is going to close down these sites because people use them less," said Spohn. "It's sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy."

Scott

It just so happens that the national forest which ends (or perhaps begins) a few miles from my house is frequently at the leading edge of the Forest Service's efforts to radically transform the management and delivery of outdoor recreation. It is a mere coincidence that I live at ground zero, but it is no coincidence that the Deschutes NF is in this unique position.

You see, our former Forest Supervisor, Sally Collins, has become the Associate Chief of the entire Forest Service. She is a very powerful woman. Unfortunately, Sally can all too frequently be found in the company of the American Recreation Coalition -- the folks who seem to run the recreation program for the USFS these days. 

If you'd like to see a recent photo of Sally and ARC's President Derrick Crandall laughing it up together, the ARC has made one available at here. If you'd like to read of Sally and Derrick's upcoming (January 2007) Partners Outdoors meeting, you can learn more at here.

So with that introduction, I'd like to share with you the appended article published in my local alternative weekly. It is the first article to document a very nasty new USFS fiddle -- a fiddle first applied by the USFS right here on the Deschutes and which is now being applied to every forest in America.  It's a fiddle that has undermined the multi-million dollar Recreation Site Facility Management Planning process and invalidates years of USFS planning. It is a fiddle so disingenuous that, I suggest, it would have been inconceivable, had not the leadership of the USFS and the ARC been working in partnership.

Scott 

PS... the photo (above) is of Sally Collins taken at an American Recreation Coalition event. Sally is standing besides an automated payment machine similar to machines installed at trailheads in Arizona. If you look closely, you might see that the sign above the machine says "Welcome to the Great Outdoors".