Today "Privatization" is being presented as the solution to just about everything. No one should be surprised. Amongst the first words on this website's most visited page are these:

•  Access to public lands is deliberately being manipulated for the benefit of campground associations, private concessionaires, manufacturers and users of motorized sports vehicles, and giant tourist and recreation corporations.
•  Congressional budgetary cuts are intentionally creating a maintenance crisis for federally managed recreation lands and facilities.
•  The rescue of a badly decayed system of National Parks and recreational lands, through private corporate investment, is the planned outcome of this strategy.

Written in 1998, shortly after the passage of legislation that authorize the charging of fees to access federally-managed public lands, we explained where the new rec-fee program would end up. We described that final destination in additional bullet points within this same document, saying:

•  A highly influential business consortium called American Recreation Coalition (ARC) is PAYING to implement this trail fee program on your Public Lands and they are counting on enormous returns for their investment.
•  ARC's ultimate objective is to acquire for its corporate benefactors, 'rights' to develop and operate recreational facilities upon these Public Lands.

Well folks, that long anticipated end point is rapidly approaching.

Appended is an article from today's Salt Lake Tribune titled "Privatization a Red Ink remedy". Apparently lawmakers are now busily suggesting that parks be turned over to KOA -- which is precisely what KOA's President suggested in Congressional Testimony given in 1998.

I would add that when that testimony was given, the presenter served on the ARC's Board of Directors  and his company was (as they remain today) a "Sustaining Member" of the ARC.  And yes, we appreciate that this example deals with State Parks and not federal lands. We offer it to suggest that no public lands, whether federal or state owned, are safe.

Scott

The following is a coverletter recently sent to the US Forest Service. It is Wild Wilderness' response to proposed rule changes that relate to public land concessionaires, the National Parks and Federal Lands Pass, senior discounts, discounts for the disabled and the  prevarication of management control of publicly owned recreation sites and facilities. Additional information is available from Western Slope NoFee Coalition.

The full comments of Wild Wilderness are available here.

 "[There are] ways to trim a bloated, deficit-ridden state government budget. One would be to make many agencies and commissions self-supporting through user fees; another would be to eliminate useless agencies and commissions altogether", or so says the Libertarian Party of California in a recent article condensed below.

In 1981, the Libertarian James P. Beckwith Jr., writing for the Cato Institute, laid out a series of privatization protocols in a publication titled "Parks, Property Rights, and the Possibilities of the Private Law." He suggested that outright sale of parks was too radical a concept for the short term. He proposed instead an orderly progression that would eventually (in perhaps two or three decades) get to the desired endpoint. Here's a passage from his introduction to that seminal paper:

The organizing principle of this paper is one of ascending radicalism: from reform through volunteerism and privatization of services to the outright abolition of public ownership and the transfer of the parks to private parties.

Today we find that the ground work has been done. The privatization tools and techniques laid out by Beckwith are commonplace and widely accepted. Today the second in command of the Department of Interior is a Libertarian with the stature of Beckwith himself.

Articles such as the one which follows, appear in publications each week. I've condensed this one to narrow the focus specifically to the privatization of parks. Appreciate, however, that what is at stake is the privatization of everything and understand that what was, during the Reagan Era, looked upon as being too radical to be considered, is being considered (and acted upon) daily. Most of all, understand that user-fees are a step (a crucial step) on the path leading to sale/disposal.

Scott

Learn more:
http://www.wildwilderness.org/content/view/378/64/
http://www.wildwilderness.org/content/view/368/64/

Forest Fees were in 1997 an isolated example of the neoliberal privatization agenda at work. Few of the people with whom I then communicated even knew there was such a thing as a 'privatization agenda' or that the intended outcome was what one might reasonably call, "the Corporate Takeover of Everything". Many doubted the very existence of such an agenda. And while a decade ago the privatization agenda was already (albeit only conceptually) broad-based and far-reaching, examples of its implementation were comparatively few and far between.

Starting a decade ago, I focused attention upon what I called "The Corporate Takeover of Nature" while  trying to raise general awareness for the larger issue of which recreation user fees and the associated Disneyfication of outdoor recreation were merely a small component.

Today examples abound. The tools and techniques that were pioneered and perfected with the Forest Fees/privatization experiment are being employed cookie-cutter fashion. Today the agenda can be observed everywhere and the takeover of everything is proceeding at warp speed and largely unchecked.

Appended is an Op-Ed from the Chicago Tribune which explores "solutions" to the growing problems associated with air travel. I share it in an effort to present an nearly perfect translation of Forest Privatization tools into Travel Privatization tools.

Those familiar with the privatization of outdoor recreation will see the incredible similarities -- similarities that extend right down to the fine details of technique. Those unfamiliar with the issue are invited to visit the website of the organization that claims to have invented the very word "privatization. The address is www.privatization.org --- and YES, these folks also lay claim to Forest Fees.

I'd just add that in the appended article, the $15 bag fee is of little importance. Focus your attention upon that fee and you'll miss the story completely. The guts of this article are found in what are presented as "long term" answers.

Scott

Advertisers have no manners, zero regard for privacy and absolutely no respect for the sanctity of unmolested public space. They'll hit potential customers anywhere they can and are always searching for new ways to do so. 

I can remember going to the ocean as a kid in the '50s and seeing banners towed behind airplanes as well as ads written in the sky by slow flying smoker-writers. Today machine emboss mile-long messages into the coastal sand while advertising entrepreneurs work out the details of casting brand logos upon the Moon.

While we wait for the arrival of the Moon Swoosh, you might be interesting to know that the invasion of the Flogos has already begun.

As the appended article asks:

[Imagine getting up in the morning, taking your cup of coffee and morning paper out to the porch or deck for a few minutes of peace, and, instead of starting the day under God’s pristine sky, you look up and see it’s filled with Mickey Mouses or little purple pills or Nike Swooshes or political ads. … The possibilities are as limitless as they are dismaying.]

QUESTION:

Should there be laws to protect at least some spaces from advertising, or should every inch of this planet (and beyond) be fair game to advertisers?

COMMENT:

Until recently, the US Forest Service did not permit advertising within our National Forests. Sadly, the agency caved to pressure from the ski industry.

Scott

Learn more at the Flogos homepage http://www.flogos.net

In yesterday's Salt Lake Tribune, Tom Wharton's appeared under the headline "Public-lands bill may look better, but it's still a pig." His column is about Utah's proposed "Washington County Growth & Conservation Act of 2008" — a wilderness bill cut from shoddy cloth — and what, until recently, would have been deemed "unusually shoddy cloth." Unfortunately, our standards have fallen so low there is little that is unusual about this particular pig. Wharton focuses his attention upon land sale provisions within this so-called "Wilderness" bill. He calls upon the conservation community and specifically upon 'national environmental groups' to oppose this bill. Wild Wilderness is with Wharton.

I'd like to add one thought not mentioned by Wharton. As a direct consequence of the Milton Friedmanesque 'Shock Doctrine' and the economic crisis now being inflicted upon the citizens of America by our elected leaders, we will soon be asked to sell off and/or privatize virtually every asset held in common, including our public lands. In that regard, America stands poised to become the next Pinochet's Chile.

Some will say, "nonsense, that will never happen." Others will say, "well perhaps just a little privatization would be okay, so long as the price is right and the money is well spent".

To both groups, I offer this thought:

At a fancy London dinner party, George Bernard Shaw is reputed to have asked Lady Astor, in front of others, if she would spend the night with him for a million pounds.

"Why yes Mr. Shaw, I suppose I would," she replied.

To which Shaw responded: "Well then, how about five pounds?"

"Mr. Shaw," the suddenly indignant Madame Astor retorted. "What do you think I am?"

"I've established that," Shaw replied. "What I am trying to establish now is the price."

With the era of mass, wholesale, privatization of America and its heritage laying before us, now is not the time for conservationists to be stepping onto this avalanche slope.  Or to use a different metaphor, now is not the time to be distracted with the temptation to pinch pawns -- not when we are threatened with almost imminent check-mate.

Scott 

I've posted below a column from the Idaho Statesman written by their outdoor writer, Pete Zimowsky. Zimo has been reporting upon the recreation fee issue for years and, by and large, he gets it. Don't you wish the outdoor writer with your local newspaper got it? Try to imagine what would be possible if newspapers all across the country were printing columns similar to the one which appears below.
Perhaps all that is required is for you and others who already get it to contact your newspaper's outdoor writer and help him or her understand why, as the headline of this reads: "The commercialization of public lands has to stop."

As for Zimo's remark "it's not Disneyland", let me remind everyone that while public lands are not yet Disneylands, the intended result of pay-to-play is, and has always been, "The Corporate Takeover of Nature and the Disneyfication of the Wild."

Scott

Quoted from appended article from the New jersey press about proposed park privatization:

"Privatization doesn't usually help the parks.  It does, however, often result in higher fees and less service"

I would have put it more strongly than the Sierra Club spokesperson, whose words I've quoted.

Privatization of public parks is never in the public interest and, except for the fact that the public parks have been raising recreation fees so as to reduce to zero the price differential between public and private alternatives, privatization will always result in higher fees for access and use.

I would have also reminded my readers that for the next many years, if not decades, the anticipated consequence of the current financial meltdown will be the privatization of everything that is currently public and which might conceivably be profitably held or operated by the private sector.

Everything is at risk.

Price will be no object. The price of everything public will be slashed as much as is required to facilitate resource disposal.

Credit will be no object. Credit will be available to every would be privatizer willing to take public resources off the public's hands.

Users fees will be no object. The price of access will be adjusted upward until a sweet-spot is found such that the fewest visitors can be served at the highest possible rate of economic return. 

And finally, I'd like to state emphatically that the current state of affairs to which we have now arrived is NOT George Bush's doing.  'Sure', it was President Bush who broke the bank with his failed policies and failed presidency. And 'yes', it will be a long time before America can dig itself out of the hole into which Bush has deposited it.  But the pressure to reduce to private ownership and/or management, everything that was once public has been more than three decades in coming.

If public pushback does not begin pretty damned quickly and if that pushback is not more aggressive than is the push to privatize, then the rate of privatization that will be seen in the months and years ahead will likely give you whiplash.

Scott

I have frequently likened the issues of road-tolling and recreation fees as well as the concepts of "congestion pricing" with recreation "differential pricing". I have claimed countless times that very purpose for the Recreation Fee Demonstration Program  was to commercialize, privatize and motorize our public lands.

What I have never stated is that the purpose of Road-Tolling is also to commercialize, privatize and motorize.  Perhaps I never stated that because it was so obvious. Then again, for a decade now, I've believed that the recreation fee issue was equally obvious. I've compared these issues largely to impress upon my readers the universality of the transformation that was occurring.

Pasted below is an Op-Ed recently published by two Washington Post staff writers. The headline under which this appeared read: "Letting the market drive transportation - Bush officials criticized for privatization."

Most people get the road-tolling issue and the appended article presents the road-tolling issue. The appended article also presents recreation fee issue, albeit without ever making reference to recreation . The reader simply needs to replace all references to "road-tolling" with a recreation equivalence. It's easy -- and I invite you to try it.

Here are a few quotes from this lengthy Op-Ed. Please, at least, read them and try substituting recreation equivalences. Discover how familiar this subject really is!
  

"They have a myopic view," said Rep. John L. Mica, R-Fla., ranking Republican on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. Pricing transportation to drive down traffic may make market sense, but it harms the public, he said. "This was a country based on some system of equality. People are paying their taxes and have representation. You can't exclude them from having a fair return."

"Everything they're doing is designed to drive things to privatization," said Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure highways and transit subcommittee. DeFazio said the nation long ago settled that roads are public goods. "They're just trying to undo 200 years of history and go back to the Boston Post Road."

"Tyler Duvall is a little pointy-headed neocon with grand ideas about the future of transportation, and they all involve tolling," DeFazio said. "He's bright, young, energetic -- just totally wrong, and has a bizarre, neocon view of transportation."

Last month, the Government Accountability Office warned that tolls on privatized roads are typically higher than if the roads remain under public control, because of the need to generate steady profits for private investors. The report said the federal government needs to better protect the public interest.

"This is all about making money," said Frank Busalacchi, the Wisconsin transportation secretary and a member of a congressionally chartered commission that last year studied transportation funding and supported raising the gas tax. "The financiers, bankers, people coming in -- the foreign dollars coming in and buying infrastructure in this country that American people [built]."

       Scott

In the late 90s, I authored an essay titled, Our Public Lands: Their Working Capital. Looking back upon it today, it is almost frightening how accurately it predicted the future NOT just of public lands, but of all public assets and the delivery of virtually all public goods and services.

Pasted here is a passage from that essay followed by a passage from one of two newspaper article published today in the Boston Globe. Both were written by the same reporter and both have been condensed by me so as to draw attention to the elements of national importance. In combination they provide an up-to-the-minute update on my years-old essay.

From: Our Public Lands: Their Working Capital

In the coming debate, you will hear all about the benefits of rec-fees and glowing proclamations explaining how federal agencies have been re-invented and are now more responsive to their customers. You will hear sad tales about diminished budgets and be told that user fees will be retained locally to improve local resources. While our land-managers may continue to pay lip service to the idea of biodiversity, conservation and natural resource protection, you must understand that these agencies are being transformed into profit-driven enterprises. Foremost upon their minds are thoughts of downsizing, spinning off unprofitable assets, brand management, customer satisfaction and all the problems associated with running a profitable business. To these former bureaucrats, what were once recognized as our public lands are now considered their "working capital."

From today's Boston Globe

"Depending on the community, it's definitely coming to a crisis point," said Thomas Scott, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents, whose members are juggling rising costs, many with flatlined funding. "If you're not a crisis community, you probably will be, in short order."

The point I'd like to leave you with is that if your community is not already in crisis, it almost certainly will be in short order. The financial crisis which is about to gut the American way of life and hobble all public and social programs, isn't an accident. It is the direct result of the ideology of "Starving the Beast."

Thirty years after this ideology was presented to the American people by President Reagan, the beast has been starved and the consequences are entirely predictable. They were predicted in my 1990s essay and in the writings of many others. 

Scott 

In less than 24 hours the Forest Service staffers most directly responsible for facilitating the privatization and commercialization of outdoor recreation will gather with their industry partners.  American Recreation Coalition President,  über-lobbyist Derrick Crandall, will deliver a talk titled:  "Big Picture Recreation - What's the Future." Undersecretary of Agriculture Mark Rey, Crandall's junior recreation partner, will deliver the keynote.

For two fun-filled days, agency personnel and industry leaders will conspire behind closed doors and a good time will be had by all. The American Public will, as always, be left out if the process entirely.

Pasted below is about all you are likely to ever know  about the 2008 Partners in Outdoor Recreation Conference which begins tomorrow in San Diego.

Do you think it important that you knew more?
Do you wish you were represented??
Do you believe you deserve to have a vote and a voice???

In 1992, speaking at the 75th Anniversary of the National Park Service conference, conservation hero Michael Frome said:

 Let us go on from this conference to rescue everything that still remains wild and to recapture a lot more that has been lost. Let us not privatize the parks with the goodies of Disneyesque "partnerships" and the strings attached to them."
              -Michael Frome

Imagine how different the world would be if America had followed Frome's sage advice. Let us now recapture that which has been stolen from us.

Scott

GOOGLE for the terms "public/private partnership forest-service" -- and you get 90,000 hits, the first of which takes you to an exceptionally important document on the Wild Wilderness website.  

What I provided is the agreement between the American Recreation Coalition --a lobby group which, since 1979, has strived to dominate and control access to outdoor recreation-- and the USDA Forest Service, the nation's second most important provider of recreational access. The document details the Public/Private Partnership (P3) which radically, and potentially forever, changed the very nature of outdoor recreation. It transformed how citizens are treated by land managers and it is responsible for undercutting the ability of the US Forest Service to manage recreation as a public resource.

The stated purpose of this P3 is expressed as follows:

[The purpose of this Agreement is to cooperatively implement the recreation user fee demonstration project, authorized by the fiscal year 1996 Interior Appropriations measure, in order to enhance outdoor recreation opportunities on Federal public lands.]

Today, as a result of this and similar partnerships between public agencies and special interest entities, citizens are treated as mere customers/consumers and land managers have become lackeys who take orders from, and pander to,  their "partners".  Today, managers manage partnerships and privatization contracts.
The Canadians got here before us. Canadians were early adapters who, when they realized their mistake, attempted to pull back.  Yet in spite of their efforts, they continue to slip toward the brink. Appended is an article published today in the Canadian press titled "Why are we revisiting P3s?"

Whenever you hear the words Public Private Partnership -  stop and think.

Knowing how frequently you will be hearing those words, I've made quite a demand upon you. Then again, this is EXCEPTIONALLY IMPORTANT.

Scott

PS... The USFS is the second most important provider of outdoor recreation. CLICK HERE to see what the ARC is currently (RIGHT NOW) doing with the most important provider.
 

When I think of Utah, Salt Lake City and the Editorial Board of the SL Tribune,  I don't think of a bunch of pinko lefties.  I think of them as bedrock conservatives.  So when I read the appended editorial against Utah's proposed  legislated mass privatization of public recreation facilities and saw their impassioned outcry against excessive free-market ideology gone exceedingly wrong, I smiled.

I figured that if THEY were starting to figure out what was going on and if THEY were opposed to it, then perhaps there was hope after all.  

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE understand that just about every word in this SL Tribune editorial can, and should, be said about the privatization of recreation on federally-managed public lands. The forces as play are, near enough, identical and the issues at stake are indistinguishable.

Scott

Fee-Demo was, very possibly, the first modern-day program which authorized a federal agency to sell something (in this case recreational access) and to KEEP the proceeds from that sale. After Fee-Demo, this trend became increasingly commonplace. and with each new application we have moved closer to the long-predicted (and long sought after), fire-sale liquidation of our publicly owned assets.

Pasted below is the most recent proposal as reported in yesterday's WashingtonPost. President Bush, has asked for a "real property disposal pilot" which, according to the Post,  "would move unneeded properties directly to sale and provide an incentive for agencies -- they would keep 20 percent of the net proceeds, with 80 percent going into the U.S. Treasury."

Please understand that the is NOTHING particularly new or unusual about this. The USFS piloted almost precisely this program in 2005 with an effort to dispose of "unneeded"  USFS-managed public properties.  Wild Wilderness played a significant role in drawing national media attention to what was going on. We placed the agency's Working Capital Fund Conveyance Plan online for the public and the media to examine. It was at about the same time that we similarly raised the red flag about the USFS program known as 'Recreation Site Facility Master Planning' --- another program that is part of the trend involving to dispose of so-called unneeded, unwanted or unprofitable, public properties. 

Here's a quote from the LA Times article published on  May 31, 2005.

[Tom Udall of New Mexico, was more skeptical. "I think it creates an incentive that could have some very adverse consequences," he said. "If you have agencies which are starved for maintenance funds, and you create the incentive to sell assets to get maintenance funds they might very well be carrying out transactions that are not the best."]

THAT, my friends, is precisely what we said about Fee-Demo when we broke that particular story in 1997.

I almost hate to ask this, but I will and would appreciate hearing from you.

Do you care enough to become actively engaged in resisting this trend?

Scott 

The appended article is NOT about the US Forest Service holding a real bake sale. The Forest Service is instead, and once again, selling public lands and keeping the cash.

The trend which has the USFS selling lands and keeping the cash did not begin with the passage of legislation in 2002, as this article reports. In my hometown of Bend, Oregon the USFS and special interest groups --with the full and active support of our elected officials-- broke the ground that led directly to the current state of affairs.

We Oregonians created, supported and ultimately passed legislation which authorized the Forest Service to sell 8 parcels of public lands in our State and to use the proceeds to construct a nice new administrative facility, soon to be built in my town.

Appended is the appeal Wild Wilderness issued on April 28, 2000. In it, we reached out to the community with the hope of nipping this trend in the bud. We didn't think the USFS should be selling the farm to pay the heating bills. We failed to convince others that this was a bad idea and today you are seeing the consequences.

Scott

Pasted below is a comment posted upon this website by someone who, apparently, is closely tracking the Valles Caldera / Charter Forest issue.

The poster has, so I believe, used a pseudonym and can not be identified.

My original 2006 post, to which this comment was directed, had been  titled "Valles Caldera - A Failed Experiment and Lessons to be Learned."

The good news is the Bush/Libertarian "Charter Forest" model has been invalidated. The Valles Caldera experiment has clearly and demonstrably failed.  GOOD -- because an important lesson was learned.

The bad news is that it will likely be at least another 7 or 8 years before the general public  can begin to enjoy and appreciate these public lands --  lands purchased with your tax-dollars at a cost of over $100,000,000. Lands which have been, and will continue to be, managed as a playground/reserve for the wealthy and the few.

Then again, perhaps that too is part of the good news. Perhaps as more Americans come to understand just how badly they've been screwed, they will actively resist the next attempted screwing, or the one after that, or the one after that, or the one after that ...

Scott

These days we hear much from land management agencies in regard to their efforts to price recreation at its correct market value. Today, public land managers look to the prices charged by private recreation alternatives and set the price for public access accordingly.

After they have done so, private recreation provides, no longer being compelled to keep their prices low in order to remain competitive with public alternatives, are able to increase their prices.  And, as you would imagine, the spiral repeats. The winners are the sellers of access, both public and private. I needn't remind you who are the intended losers.

That said... there is a darker and much more important issue associated with these  efforts to marketize and, specifically to price, everything from Wilderness, to hunting fishing, camping, skiing, boating, and swimming, etc.

Appended are excerpts from a "Proceedings"  paper presented 25 years ago.   It begins with this question:

[Knowing that a wilderness exists may have value to some people, even if they never visit a wilderness area nor intend to. But why is this value dependent on public ownership of the wilderness?]

The paper's Conclusion begins with these words that pertain to the wholesale disposal / privatization of our publicly owned lands:

[Because of equity difficulties that would inhere in any disposal program and because of a healthy public skepticism about the potential for fraud and give-away, I am doubtful that disposition on a large scale is politically feasible at the present time.]

Contained between those two passages is the reason why today's land managers are obsessed with pricing recreation and with the enforced exclusion of those citizens who are unwilling or unable to pay.

Scott 

In the grand scheme of things, the fact that the San Francisco Presidio is getting a Starbucks isn't exactly a big deal. After all, the Presidio was created as a self-funded National Park --- one that is rapidly being filled with much larger private and/or commercial intrusions than a mere Starbucks.

I'm sharing the appended article because it is important, because I'm quoted and because it provides an opportunity to share this quote from the Director of the National Parks Service, ca. 1950.

"If we are going to succeed in preserving the greatness of the national parks, they must be held inviolate. They represent the last stands of primitive America. If we are going to whittle away at them we should recognize, at the very beginning, that all such whittlings are cumulative and that the end result will be mediocrity."  - Newton Drury

Scott