One of the very best articles you're likely to read on the issue of National Park Privatization appears in the current (February 2004) edition of Trailer Life. The article is not available online but is available today in magazine racks and on library shelves.

The article begins with a pull-out quote by National Park Service Director, Fran Mainella in which she claims "media reports have mischaracterized our efforts as targeting a broad sweep of federal jobs for outsourcing". She is wrong. The media has not mischaracterized her intentions.

The media has, however, failed to understand that the Bush Administration's National Park Privatization agenda goes FAR beyond the outsourcing of federal jobs. The agenda is about nothing less than commercializing, privatizing and motorizing those parks -- as this Trailer Life article makes clear!!!

What follows are direct quotes from the article. Read on and decide for yourself what exactly is at stake. Then decide how you will help put a halt to this agenda.

Scott

Quoted from appended article ...

["Citizens like it," Lanteigne said. "The philosophy is to shift money away from the taxpayer and the general fund and increase user fees for everything from parks and recreation, planning, zoning and jails. I think as budget opportunities arise, more people are going to look at user fees."]

Guilty or INNOCENT, it's going to cost you if, for any reason, you should end up in the Fairfax slammer. And while these new go-to-jail fees may today be low ("a bargain", some will say), soon enough America's prison system will be fully privatized and who knows how high these incarceration fees will then go.

Before long, only the wealthy will be able to afford a night behind bars. Presumably the more you're willing to pay, the better treatment you'll receive. Some will go so far as to suggest that "citizens like it" as long as they think they're receiving fair value for their money. That is, after all, the forest-fee mantra -- so why should it not be the prison-fee mantra?

But what is to become of indigent prisoners, political prisoners and prisoners of conscience. What in the world will become of the fee-demo activist who as a matter of principle chooses not to pay forest recreation user-fees, refuses to pay the resulting fine for failing to pay those forest fees,  is thrown in jail for not paying his court fees and then fails to, or simply can not afford to, pay his prison fees???

How long before we return to the days when it was common to tip your executioner? Are we perhaps almost there today???

Scott

Wild Wilderness was founded in the early 90's by a couple of guys who loved the unconfined wilderness experiences afforded by traditional backcountry skiing.  We created a local support group and a letterhead tagline that summed up our interests, saying: "Wild Wilderness - A user group that appreciates the value of wilderness". Years later, we replaced the word "wilderness" with "wildness" to better reflect our interests in wildness wherever wildness could still be found. Yet from the very start, our mission has always been the same -- to protect and enhance opportunities for the enjoyment of those recreational pursuits that are most dependent upon wilderness values.

To be blunt, the pursuit of our mission has not been easy going and our cause has suffered more than a few loses at the hands of motorized and commercial recreation. But, in all these years, perhaps nothing has proved to be as threatening to the interests of wild wilderness, as the growing impacts arising from a trend we've dubbed -  "The Commodification of Nature".

Pasted below is an unusually good article from the LA Times that contrasts the values of traditional backcountry winter adventure with the new values of commercialized, commodified, industrial-strength recreation.

Battles for  the wild are being waged on all fronts. On this front, additional support is desperately needed.

Scott

 There are some who can live without wild things and some who cannot. Like winds and sunsets, wild things were taken for granted until progress began to do away with them.  Now we face the question of whether a still higher 'standard of living' is worth its cost in things natural, wild and free. - Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac (1949) 

Quoted from appended issue update by PEER Board Member Frank Buono.

 [Those who argue that the main problem facing the parks is lack of funds, must, at some point, critically evaluate how the NPS uses its existing funds. Without critical oversight from the conservation community, more funds may result in benefits to parks but could also mean more damage and waste like that being perpetrated at Cuyahoga National Barnyard.]

For those unfamiliar with what the National Park Service is up to in Cuyahoga NP, I've appended an older message to serve as background. And here is an excerpt from that older post.

 [In short, the NPS has chosen to protect a marginal resource - farming and make it the center of park objectives to which even sensitive forest interior species and common native animals alike will be sacrificed if need be. This is more than ludicrous! It is dangerous. The twisted rationale at Cuyahoga could spread to other parks. Managing parks to perpetuate the consequences of human activities would come at the expense of the few wild qualities that have managed to survive us. It is certain that the NPS will go ahead with its farm program. The park superintendent has limited experience in real national parks and likes to think of himself as a "take-charge visionary" - in the NPS, this is a euphemism for one given over to management quackery.]

To learn more, click here.

Scott 

The appended article about Disneyland is absolutely fascinating ESPECIALLY when you consider the analogous technologies and management trends being applied to recreation on America's public lands. As you read this, think "Copper Mountain's Beeline Ski Pass", think "Digital Angel Embedded Wilderness Permits", think "Commercial Grand Canyon River Trips" ... THINK ...

As you read this also think about the June 12, 1986 Congressional Testimony (pasted here) given by the President of the American Recreation Coalition -- the very same folks who brought you fee-demo. This is what Derrick Crandall told Congress:

                              ---begin--

  The terms user fees and entrance fees carry negative baggage politically and do nothing to garner popular support. Despite claims that there is a philosophic distinction between the two charges with the Congress, the line is by no means drawn (or of significant concern) in the minds of most recreationists. Technically, Disney collects its fee as an entrance fee - a simple fee for a daily pass. yet his is a change; Disney initially sold a ticket book with coupons for specific rides (Class A, Class B, etc.). Disney concluded that the single entry fee was preferable for several reasons:

   * guests were able to select those attractions of interest to them and/or where lines were smallest

   * guests didn't have to face the need to buy additional tickets during the day, and this feel "nickeled and dimed;" and

   * personnel could aid guests rather than collect tickets.

  Presently, we a marching toward more and higher fees in out parks and forests. In the face of budget cuts, more and more services will either be abandoned or be made fee-based (sometimes with private parties assuming the role). It is a real possibility that a visitor to a national park in the 1990's will pay an entrance fee, a fee for brochures and maps, a fee for nature walks and campfires chats and charges for campsites and boat launching ramps. We may find, as Disney found, that people would prefer a single, comprehensive charge.

  And perhaps people would respond better to a new term which gives a sense that they are contributing to their parks with their payments. Few recreationists describe themselves are "users".

                                   --end--

As you read the following article, reflect upon what you've just read. You're about to discover that things at Disney have changed yet again. And please know that I'm not concerned about Disneyland. I'm seriously concerned about Disneyfied public lands and most especially with those public land managers who've been blinded and brainwashed by the Walt Disney Company and who are faithfully following the Disney model.

Scott

Recreation industry leaders recently met with top federal land official to develop (in private and behind closed doors) a management strategy for outdoor recreation on America's Public Lands. The official title for this private meeting was, oddly enough "Opening the Doors Wider at America's Public Lands - Our Natural Health and Fitness Centers."

This is the WRONG PROCESS....
... and it will  produce the WRONG RESULTS.

This is NOT how DEMOCRACY works.

This is about shutting the door to all, except special interests ... and turning outdoor recreation into the kind of commodity you'd expect to purchase from a Fitness Center.

How do we put the PUBLIC back in public lands management decisions and how do we stop the American Recreation Coalition from further advancing their privatization agenda?

Scott

PS... detailed information on previous Partners Outdoors meeting can be found at www.wildwilderness.org/docs/po.htm

Pasted below are two news releases issued this week. Read 'em to get a sense of how Ticketmaster is quickly becoming the gatekeeper of America's public land and how you have already been reduced to the status of a mere customer /consumer of outdoor recreation.  Visit www.ReserveUSA.com to expand the experience and after so doing, if you wish to learn more ... please let me know. I'll be happy to send you the many posts I have made on this topic.

Can this commercialization / privatization  trend still be reversed? I don't know -- but I know that without formidable opposition, things are only going to get worse.

Scott

Quoted from Reason Public Policy Institute's (RPPI)  Environmental Studies Program Policy Study No. 190:

[States and municipalities, in partnership with the private sector, are best equipped to address America's infrastructure problems. User fees, privatization, and public-private partnerships are the tools needed for this task.]

Why should you or I be concerned about what RPPI says or thinks --- they're just a think-tank, funded by Koch, Scaife, Bradley, Lilly and other funders of hard-right causes -- aren't they?

Well no, actually. They're not just ANY old think tank.

[New Environmentalism -- RPPI's Executive Director Lynn Scarlett has become one of the nation's leading voices for a "new environmentalism" that emphasizes incentives, flexibility, private stewardship, and decentralized decisionmaking.]

Lynn Scarlett, isn't merely RPPI's Executive Director, she is the Assistant Secretary for Policy, Management and Budget of the Department of Interior.

It was Lynn Scarlett who recently testified before Congress in support of fee-demo  and it is Lynn Scarlett who is currently championing the Bush Administration's efforts to permanently authorize this controversial privatization program.

User fees, public-private partnerships and volunteerism are the favorite privatization tools of the Bush Administration. And, as I hope most folks appreciate, Fee-Demo has precious little to do with recreation and almost everything to do with ideology.

Scott

Quoted from appened article:

[Spherix filed suit at that time, claiming that awarding the contract to ReserveAmerica would violate anti-trust laws because Ticketmaster would be monopolizing reservations services for all U.S. parks, forests and recreational areas.]

By now you've almost certainly heard the Department of Interior and the National Park Service speak of "One Stop shopping" and "seamless product delivery" of recreation an tourism to their paying customers ( i.e., to you!). http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/030916/latu113_1.html http://www.recreation.gov/recstopmeet.cfm

Perhaps you didn't appreciate that their "One Stop" reference was also an indirect reference to monopolistic outsourcing and privatization. The following article about dueling hyenas will help explain the current situation.

Scott

PS... To reserve your piece of America's Great Outdoors go to: www.reserveusa.com  and also www.reserveworld.com

And for a truly behind-the-scenes look,  click here.

Tomorrow is "Make a Difference Day" --- and leading the festivities in Washington DC will be Interior Secretary Gale Norton and her trusty sidekick Steve Griles --- two people who are certainly "making a difference" when it comes to America's public lands.

The program Norton and Griles will be celebrating is one I love to hate. It is called "Take Pride in America" and it has been backed by every motorized recreation organization and privatization advocate since former Senator Slade Gordon introduced legislation to breathe life into it in 1999. "Privatization through Volunteerism" would certainly be a more accurate description of what this program is about.

Pasted below is a condensed News Release about tomorrow's event and its "Disneyhand VoluntEARS" partner. Here is a LINK to the first of many warning I've already shared about this program.

Scott

Quoted from appended San Francisco Chronicle article:

 ["It's one edge of the administration's big privatization project," alleges Bill Reffalt, chief of the refuge system under former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. "They can't attack it directly; they tried that when James Watt was Secretary of the Interior. So they're trying this form of privatization, so they can reduce the federal presence and control in public areas like parks and refuges."]

Gosh, for a moment I thought the author was describing a different edge of the Bush administration's big privatization project, namely the recreation fee demonstration edge. Perhaps his next article will point out the direct connection.

What is the chance that the private sector (or a tribal government) will provide public access to public lands/facilities unless they are permitted to charge, collect and retain access fees from those members of the public wishing to visit their lands???

Perhaps it is for this very reason that the Bush Administration's newly introduced legislation designed to make fee-demo permanent (HR 3283) contains the following clause:

 "The Secretary concerned may establish and charge a fee for a regional multientity pass that will be accepted by one or more Federal land management agencies or by one or more governmental or nongovernmental entities for a specified period not to exceed 12 months."

Perhaps all of Bush's privatization pieces (outsourcing, user-fees, volunteerism, partnerships, etc.) really do fit together into one great big privatization package!

Scott

The Public doesn't want them. Forest Service officials say they "violate agency policies" and yet a few special interest groups and their agency partners insist on bringing outdoor advertisements to the National Forests.

What do you think --- do you want to see advertising in your the forests and on your public mountains?? If not, perhaps you'd do well to contact your Congressman directly on this matter because the USFS does not much care what the public wants. In the eyes of the USFS if you are not a "partner" or a "stakeholder", then you must be a "customer" --- or else you're nothing at all.

A USFS ruling has temporarily banned these ads but should this decision be reversed, it will be extremely difficult to prevent commercial advertising from spreading uncontrollably like the noxious weed it is. Best we nip this one in the bud.

Scott

Quoted from appended article from today's Associated Press:

 [The move contrasts with a push by the Bush administration to enact permanent recreation fees for national forests and other public lands and turn some fee collection to private businesses.]

In 1998 Oregon voters passed ballot Measure 66 and in so doing authorized lottery funds to be used for State Park maintenance. Immediately thereafter the Oregon legislature cut off allocation of general funds to the State park system. Today OPRD's operating budget comes from RV Fees, Lottery Dollars, Entrance Fees, Concessionaire Revenues and from campground fees.

The good news is that Oregon Parks Recreation Department is bucking the trend toward increased user fees and has decided to, for now, limit entrance fees to those State Parks where fees are already being charged.

The bad news is that there is enormous pressure to overdevelop and overcommericalize Oregon's State park facilities because the parks receive no general fund dollars and must be financially self-sufficient.

The bad news is that as long ago as 1997, legislation was introduced in the Oregon Legislature (HB 3563) to introduce a state park privatization demonstration program. We may see similar legislation reintroduced before long.

The bad news is that corporate sponsorships, public-private-partnerships, volunteerism, contracting, franchises and service shedding are all privatization tools that have been proposed to improve the bottom line for Oregon's State Parks. We may see more application of these tools before long.

As long as Oregon's State Parks are expected to be financially self-sufficient they will have to find money wherever they can and cater to those customers most willing to pay for specific services. So while you won't see new entrance fees this year, you may well see new marinas, pull through motorhome camping sites, more yurts and commercial businesses when you visit a State Park next year. And, it goes without saying, you'll be required pay to use any of those amenities. I'll let you decide whether you that's  good news or bad.

Scott 

Senator Craig Thomas' (R-WY) S. 1107 is a fairly straight forward bill that, if passed, would make recreation fees permanent for the National Parks and would allow the revenues collected to remain, largely, within the park where they were collected. Wild Wilderness DOES NOT support this legislation, but we do not find it totally abhorrent either. If passed it would result in further Disneyfication of America's National Parks and would, over time, further reduce these Crown Jewels to sacrificial offering to Industrial Tourism. The 'good news' is, S.1107 would only affect NPS-managed lands and it would not, in an of itself, immediately destroy the parks. It would merely escalate the rate of destruction that has been going on for a great many years. (click here to read bill).

Pasted below is the full text of Lynn Scarlett's, Assistant Secretary for Policy -Department of the Interior, Senate Testimony from earlier in the day where she proposes revisions to S.1107 that would totally and completely change the nature of the bill. These changes would turn S. 1107 into the Public Lands Bill from HELL. If these changes were incorporated into the bill and if this bill were to pass ... I will state without equivocation that the consequences would be devastating to America's public lands and would pave the way for privatization and commercialization of recreational opportunities on public lands to an extent that has hitherto never been contemplated in the history of our country.

Scott

PS... Links to all Testimony given today by all witnesses can be found here.

Quoted from appended article:

The National Park Service, which oversees the Mall, had to approve the exhibition. The $10 million anted up by those corporate sponsors evidently made the decision easier for federal officials.

The Corporate Takeover of America's Crown Jewels marches forward with this unusually ugly display of prostitution by the National Park Service. Have a read of the following and then imagine where this is headed....

Scott

The distinction between First-Class customers and those of lower-classes has OFFICIALLY come to America's National Forests.

Just imagine the possibilities for implementing this new class system as outdoor recreation becomes increasingly commodified and as the measure of a forest visitor's (customer's) worth is the depth of his or her pockets.

Scott

PS.... I don't need to look into my wallet to know that under the new system I'm, at best, a Second-Class citizen. But how about you? Will you passively allow yourself to be forced to the back of the bus or will you pay to sit up front and, in so doing, push everyone behind you a little further back?  Or will you oppose this unfair and undemocratic system?

Quoted from appended article in current edition of BlueRibbon Coalition's Magazine:

 Derrick Crandall, President of the American Recreation Coalition and Chairman of the previous TPIA Advisory Board feels "the new program will have dramatic and beneficial consequences for millions of Americans who turn to the great outdoors for mental, physical, and spiritual health and celebrate the special legacy we enjoy in our parks, forests, refuges, and other public lands."

Please have a look as what the BlueRibbon Coalition is saying about this "Take Pride in America" program. For additional info see:

http://www.funoutdoors.com/tpia.html
http://www.takepride.info
http://www.doi.gov/news/030416nortonspeech.htm
http://www.takepride.gov/partners.htm
http://www.paohv.org/right_frame_usa_pride.html
http://www.paohv.org/right_frame_political_june03.html
http://www.nmma.org/government/legcon/bios.asp

And here's an article announcing that Derrick Crandall would be replaced with a lawyer from the firm of Brownstein, Hyatt & Farber, P.C. --- which, of course, is the old law firm of Gale Norton.

Take Pride in America is a tool in the privatization toolbox. It should be broadly denounced and vigorously opposed by all who care about protection of the environment or who enjoy low impact forms of outdoor recreation.

Scott

Quoted from appended article:

 ["These are our commons, the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone are the only two areas in the whole United States that people see as our common areas," she said. "If you don't have that as a common public area free from commercialization, what do you have left?"]

Or restated slightly -- if we permit the Corporate Takeover of Nature, then surely the Corporate Takeover of Everything will follow.

Pasted below is an excellent public-land privatization article in which the author brings together a great many related public-land privatization topics. Unfortunately she left out the recreation user fee component entirely, but for many of you receiving this message, user fees are a privatization/commercialization component with which you are well acquainted. So here's the rest of the story.

Scott

PS... two excellent resources on this topic are "Privatization-Government for Sale" on AFGE's webpage  and "Privatization of America's Public Lands" on our website.

Quoted from current edition of Thunderbear:

[The Act establishes a Valles Grande National Preserve to be administered by, but not as a part of Santa Fe National Forest. Basically, it is a USFS multiple use area on steroids. It is to be a model of a "working environment"]

I'm not sure I'd call the Valles Caldera a "multiple use area on steroids" as the author of the appended article has done. I tend to think of it as more of an adventure into the Brave New World of "multiple use elitism."

No matter which description more closely captures the reality of this situation, it is absolutely correct that the Valles Caldera is managed like no other public lands in America. It is quite possibly the least public public-land you and I will ever own.

Scott

Quoted from appended EDITORIAL:

 [By treating Forest Service employees in the field like chopped liver, the agency's top brass arrogantly showed what they think of the public, too.]

There are, even to this day, many good people working within the USFS.... people with integrity, a connection to the land and with a desire to do right by those for whom they ultimately work - the American People.

There are few such people working at the higher ranks of the USFS. And at the highest ranks all you will find these days are sycophants eager to serve corporate interests and to please Bush Administrators.

The appended Denver Post Editorial provides yet another example of how the USFS's highest brass have allowed themselves to become the unthinking enforcers of elitist policy dictated by the recreation industry. You'd have thought that people at the top-of their careers would have something more to offer than an infinite capacity to accept orders and dutifully pass those orders down the ranks.

Scott