When High Country News introduced the brand new issue of pay-to-play, industrial strength, wreckreation in a special "The Old West is Going Under" edition,  they had this to say:

http://www.hcn.org/servlets/hcn.Article?article_id=4134

[So far, the mainstream environmental organizations have all but ignored the threat of outdoor recreation, leaving the fight against ARC to an energetic enviro-political gadfly from Bend, Ore., named Scott Silver. Silver is the leader, or perhaps the entirety, of an organization called Wild Wilderness, and he is on a crusade to stop "the trend toward commercialization, privatization and motorization of the public lands."]

Back then, I got out a dictionary and looked up the word "gadfly."

It read: GADFLY:

1. A persistent irritating critic; a nuisance.

2. One that acts as a provocative stimulus; a goad.

3. Any of various flies, especially of the family Tabanidae, that bite or annoy livestock and other animals.

When Thunderbear, a journal whose masthead reads, "The Oldest Alternative Newsletter in the Federal Government" today published an article about my work, they used the word "gadfly" twelve times in their introduction. I took it as a compliment.

Pasted below is that introduction to that interview. For those who might like to learn more about the person behind all of these provocative, stimulating, and sometimes goading e-mails ---  I invite you to read the interview I did with Thunderbear.  It is available at the link which appears below.

Scott

----- begin quoted -----

http://www.workingnet.com/thunderbear/268.html

THE LAST WORD -- SCOTT SILVER

One of the irritating, but necessary components of a free society is the Gadfly.

The Gadfly serves two very important purposes in a Democracy.

First, the Gadfly alerts the community to the presence of evil and evil-doers, and positively urges the community on to civic and environmental Virtue.

Second, the Gadfly simply exists. Like the proverbial canary in the coal mine, the continued presence of Gadflies in a society is one of the best indicators of the health of its Democracy. In a totalitarian society, the Gadfly is co-opted, locked up, exiled, shot, or otherwise given an offer he/she can't refuse.

Then the Gadfly has the love and gratitude of his/her community?

Well, no. Gadflies, after all, are irritating. That is their job description. Many in the community, even those who benefit from the actions of the Gadfly, will regard them as meddling party poopers.

Also, being a Gadfly does not pay well and we Americans are notoriously impressed by money.

So, how does one get to be a Gadfly? The answer is that they are self appointed and self trained. After all there is no position description for a GS-11 Gadfly in the Federal Government ("Incumbent will point out the mistakes of his/her supervisors in a timely manner; Incumbent will obstruct any action not in the best interest of the environment and/or the public. Incumbent will assure that the actions of his/her supervisors are totally transparent and aboveboard etc etc)

So how did Silver get to be an environmental Gadfly? Sort of by osmosis. He was a typical successful biochemist with some 5 patents under his belt and an avocation for wilderness travel. While on such a trip with a cross country skiing buddy, they were sitting around the campfire and came to the conclusion that the wilderness they loved was being nibbled to death by bureaucrats and developers. They returned to civilization (You always have to return) and co-founded Wild Wilderness; a no-compromise electronic defender of America's last wild places.

Michael Frome, Dean of American environmentalists, said of Silver: Scott Silver exemplifies the concerned citizen conservationist at his best. He is wholly committed, diligent, determined, and perceptive. Thorough in his research and eloquent in his writing. He is a true guardian of the public estate, an incredible watchdog who has developed a network reaching deep inside our public agencies as well as into citizen groups everywhere in the country. He does more than virtually any national organization to alert us to the real threats to our cherished land treasures.......

READ THE INTERVIEW



 

Quoted from the appended article from Oregon Public Broadcasting titled "Backlogged Maintenance Plagues Northwest State Parks":

[This probably explains why park funding isn't always a top priority for lawmakers. As long as the customers aren't complaining, there's little sense of urgency.]

As long as the illusion can be maintained, the rot will continue to undermine the system. As long as friends groups, private philanthropy, user frees, corporate sponsorships and hiding deterioration can preserve the illusion, the system will conspire to undermine the parks.

There will become a time when the rot will have advanced to such a degree that the park system will not be fixable through normal government intervention.  At that point, the system will be privatized or dismantled.

I hope folks do not think I am cruel when I place much of the blame for the continuing deterioration of National and State Parks upon well-meaning organizations and individuals who honestly believe they are helping parks by applying band-aids upon gangrenous sores.

As much we'd like to believe otherwise, the starving of public services (parks, highways, etc.) has been deliberate. It is an integral part of the neoliberal agenda. Until "customers" (formerly known as "owners" or "citizens")  start complaining, our government will do nothing of significance to reverse these trends. Until the public holds our government accountable, it will consistently fail to act in the public's best interest.

I am not anti-government. I am pro-government so long as it is of, by and for the people. I am staunchly opposed to corporate-government (government of, by and for corporate interests) . Corporate-government is what we have in America today and that will not change until the people make change happen.

Gandhi said, "Non-cooperation with evil is as much a responsibility as cooperation with good."  To fix our parks, reclaim our democracy and/or pull America back from the brink of neo-feudalism, will require both cooperation with good AND non-cooperation with evil. I remain ever hopeful.

Scott

If a commentary in the reactionary Washington Times tried to portray President Bush as an environmentalist, surely you'd

• question the motives
• challenge the sources
• carefully examine the spin
• do your best to decipher the ORWELLIAN LANGUAGE
• and you'd critically question the article's conclusions.

Wouldn't you????

Pasted below is an article published days ago in The Washington Times titled - "Bush the environmentalist?"  It is about the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument --- the monument recently created by President Bush and welcomed with unquestioning support from just about everyone except me.  On the day this monument was announced, I pointed out that there was "a hook in the Velveeta"  and then, in a series of postings, went on the explain the nature of the hook.

Perhaps the appended article from The Washington Times, when read with the appropriate filters, will help reveal that hook to those who've not yet seen it.

It is a very big hook of unusual importance to those promoting the neoliberal agenda. Privatize the waters and the land will follow. That is the agenda --- is it not???

Sadly, subscribers to The Washington Times are unlikely to get anything from this story other than the message that George W. Bush did something good for the environment and that it's time "environmental extremists" stop dissing their man.

Scott

       "During times of universal deceit, telling
         the truth becomes a revolutionary act."
                            -George Orwell

The appended editorial about National Park funding was so ungrammatical and disjointed that in spite of what it said, I almost let it slide by without comment. What it said, however, scared the pants off me.

There will, I fully expect,  soon be better-written proposals floated along these same lines. I fear that many of the solutions proposed will be enacted. If and when that happens, park activists and the conservation community should be prepared to share in the blame.

As I have said for the past decade ( www.wildwilderness.org ), the problem with the National Parks is NOT funding, though inadequate funding is certainly contributing to the downfall of the National Park System.

The problem is that neo-conservative ideology has been applied to park management for so long that the concept of what a National Park should be, has been drastically altered. The problem is that numerous crises have been created and intentionally inflicted upon the parks so as to bring about specific, pre-ordained, ideologically-motivated changes regarding how those parks are funded and managed. And the problem is that when those crises were being created, park activists focused upon the wrong issues and largely failed to draw attention to what was actually destroying the National Park System.

Those who are advocates of public lands and National Parks and who narrowly focused attention upon funding without acknowledging the bigger problems, used the wrong frame.  Those who have been calling for increased funding without understanding that additional tax-based funding will not be coming from this administration, made a mistake. Needed funding will not be forthcoming --- but OTHER solutions will !!!

I repeat:

** FUNDING IS NOT THE PROBLEM.
Inadequate funding is being used as a tool to advance a neo-conservative agenda!

** IDEOLOGY IS THE PROBLEM.
The application of anti-democratic, anti-American, anti-commons ideology is destroying our parks and perverting out understanding of the meaning of "public" lands.

Barring a miracle, the ideologues stand poised to win. People are likely to read the following editorial and AGREE with what it says. I do not. Nor would Cactus Ed have agreed with it!!!

Scott

There's been a great deal of talk about declining visitation within the National Park System. Many people, including those in the news media, have been speculating wildly in an effort to assign explanations to this observation. The travel and tourism industry have been the most successful in framing this issue and, as anyone who follows this subject knows, the reasons most frequently given to explain this phenomenon are:

1) Americans are fat couch potatoes,
2) Kids have become video-game addicts,
3) Parks are no fun,
4) Minorities find parks irrelevant and

5) it's difficult for National Parks to currently compete effectively for tourism dollars with theme parks and so parks need to be reinvented.

Let me shift the microscope slightly and focus attention upon the level of public support for an organization that is just as old as the NPS and which says they are working to "protect and enhance America's National Park System." It is an organization to which I belonged  --- until quitting in disgust in 1998.

Quoted from the National Park and Conservation Association's "about us" webpage (2006)

In 85 years, we have grown to represent 300,000 members through our DC headquarters and 12 regional and field offices, all working to "protect and enhance America's National Park System for present and future generations."

I'm sorry, but that's not exactly an fully honest statement. NPCA's membership may indeed stand at 300,000 today. But in 1997, when Tom Kiernan became its President and guiding force, NPCA claimed 500,000 members (see appended article).

Contrast NPCA's 40% reduction in membership with the National Park Service's reported decline from 275,236,335 recreational visitors in 1997 to 273,488,751 in 2005 (the most current data available). That's less than a 1% reduction and may not even be statistically significant.

I'm going to state emphatically that the reasons commonly given  to explain the decline in NPS visitation (and commonly reported in the press)  --  are RUBBISH. They are part of a public relations campaign created by and for the travel/tourism industry. This PR campaign is a mass deception --- an exceedingly successful one, I might add. Two of the perpetrators of this fraud are the American Recreation Coalition and the Travel Industry Association.

As for the large decline in public support for NPCA, it is unquestionably real.  I can't explain why other former NPCA supporters abandoned that iconic organization, but I can tell you why I did. NPCA is failing the parks and under Kiernan, NPCA better serves the interests of their corporate sponsors than the interests of parks, park visitors or park advocates.

For the sake of the National Park System, it's time for NPCA to change.

Scott

  *** The purpose of parks is the preservation of nature.
  This means no logging, mining, drilling, hydro development
  or human settlement. Commercial tourism development should
  stay outside park boundaries.

 

  *** Preservation is the most important purpose and top
  management priority over recreation.

 

  *** Parks must not be sold or privatized; they should be
  fully supported by taxes.

 

  *** Parks are for the public interest; private leases in
  park land undermine the rights of the public.

 

  *** Parks are meant to be permanent.  Unmaking parks,
  changing their boundaries, or changing park laws to weaken
  protection are all betrayals of the public trust.

Quoting LA Times columnist Christopher Reynolds' parting words after writing his 70th "Wild West" report and before hanging up his spurs:

[Washington needs reminding that This Land Is Our Land. If citizens' groups don't rise up, the federal government is going to push ahead with plans to make us pay more and more for access to land we already own. Under the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act that was signed into law last year, the Forest Service and a handful of other agencies have a 10-year authorization to bill us for stepping into all sorts of priceless landscapes that used to be free.]

The federal government IS going to push ahead with plans to not only make us pay more to access our lands, the federal governments IS also going to push ahead with Disneyfying those priceless landscapes in an effort to increase the perceived recreational value of these lands so that access to them can be sold to paying customers at top-dollar prices. That must is certain.

What is still undetermined is whether the People of this nation will passively accept what their government is doing to them and to their public lands. What is yet to be determined is whether citizens groups will rise up in defense of preserving that which, until recently, was both Wild and Free.

To anyone and everyone who has even a passing interest in Americas' National Parks, forests, rivers, mountains, deserts and streams, PLEASE do not passively accept the Corporate Takeover of Nature and the Disneyfication of the Wild. That is what your government and their  recreation/tourism industry partners are working to achieve. Whether they succeed is entirely dependent upon what you and I and our friends, neighbors and communities do in the next few months. If we do nothing, then we might as well all hang up our spurs and pack it in.

Scott

"Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light." -Dylan Thomas

In a press release issued today in response to the USFS's newly proposed OHV rule, the Natural Trails and Waters Coalition and the American Hiking Society wrote: "The steps the Forest Service is taking are generally headed in the right direction, but they don't go nearly far enough to have a real impact on the problem. " In a second press release also issued today, this one from the notoriously wise-use / motorized group American for Responsible Recreational Access, the same proposed USFS OHV rule is praised without qualification (see below).

Groups representing  the environmental community, say the rule is generally headed in the right direction. Groups representing  the motorized recreation and industrial tourism industries, say the rule is great. So here's a question.

When a compromise is hashed out and the difference between these positions is split, will the resulting rule positively deal with the OHV problem or will the resulting rule, as I predict, simply guarantee that OHVers who are willing to pay, will be provided places in which to play?

I'm saying that this rule has a direct fee-demo connection ... though no one yet seems willing to acknowledge that fact. Failing to do so all but ensures the final rule will be a disappointment for enviros and a great success for OHVers.

Scott

PS... All of ARRA's charter members are members of the American Recreation Coalition and as most folks now appreciate, the USFS does pretty much whatever the ARC asks of them. I presume the USFS's proposed OHV rule incorporated a great many of ARC's requests and suggestions. I predict the USFS' final rule will rely heavily upon revenues from fee-demo as well as the volunteer efforts of recreation groups. It seems inconceivable that the rule will be supported with adequate congressional funding -- which, of course, is of vital concern to the environmental community and without which the rule is destined to failure.  Therefore, it seems fair to assume that the rule is destined to failure --- at least as seen from the environmental perspective. Yet surely, that was predictable, considering it is a USFS rule and considering how they now operate!?

From a listserv:

  >  Janine Blaeloch, director of the
  >  Western Land Exchange Project in
  >  Seattle, said it best: When it comes
  >  to designating new wilderness,
  >  "Environmentalists are saying we
  >  don't care how much it costs, how
  >  many bad precedents it sets or the
  >  implications for the future."

Pasted below is my reply

The article appended below begins with the words: "NPCA gives Dubya a C minus grade for his National Parks Budget."

I think they are being EXTREMELY GENEROUS. But heck, NPCA has always given Dubya the benefit of the doubt because he was, after all, their preferred choice for President and because NPCA's President serve(s)(d?) on Bush's transition team.

Interestingly, in yesterday's Wall Street Journal, NPCA was unusually critical of their man. They even showed what some might mistake to be backbone. The article was titled: "Arsenic and Wild Space: Green Activists From Across Spectrum Unite Against Bush" and was illustrated with a bedraggled EarthFirst!er and a nattily-coifed beltway environmentalist both holding an anti-Bush sign. The message was one of UNITY. It was promoting a lie.

That particular image and message worries me, especially upon seeing it in the Wall Street Journal. It suggests that beltway environmentalists, who having until recently kowtowed to George Bush, will once again attempt to speak as though they represent the environmental movement. THEY DO NOT!

The spin put on this story by the Wall Street Journal is, I suggest, self-serving nonsense. NPCA, Environmental Defense and National Wildlife Federation (the other Big-Green Groups featured in that article) are still stuck way out there in Deep Right Field.

More to the point, George Bush's National Parks Initiative is FAR worse than NPCA's comments suggest and deserves to be vigorously opposed. It is, Bush's effort to pretend that he is doing something to protect America's Crown Jewels. And that, I suggest, is also nothing more than self-serving nonsense. Bush's National Parks Initiative deserves an F.

Scott

The following memo from National Park and Conservation Association's Thomas Kiernan makes fascinating reading. It is, in effect, an invitation being extended to Secretary of Interior-Nominee Gale Norton asking her to toss a few scraps to a select portion of the environmental community in exchange for NPCA's support of her nomination.

It is, a Sell-Out in the making and I am forwarding this because I intend to hold NPCA's feet to the fire for their narrow-minded, pussy-footing with President-elect Bush.

The Bush Presidency stands to be a disaster. If Big-Green groups such as NPCA endorse people such as Gale Norton, then the Bush Presidency will assuredly become an disaster of the highest possible magnitude.

And though the following point may sound trivial, please never forget that NPCA has been a staunch supporter of Recreation User Fees even since the days when "Privatizing the Planet"  author,  Sen. Malcolm Wallop first introduced Fee-Demo legislation in 1992. Today, both Thomas Kiernan and Malcolm Wallop serve on Bush's Transition Team.

If Gale Norton is confirmed as Interior Secretary, we can be certain that she will work toward greater privatization of the management control of America's National Parks as well as more, and higher, recreation and entrance fees on all public lands.

Scott

PS... Perhaps NPCA should be judged by the company it keeps. The following direct quote comes from the web site of the American Recreation Coalition.

http://www.funoutdoors.com/newsmore.html#applaud
        Organizations signing the letters included: American Automobile Association, American Bus Association, American Motorcyclist Association, American Planning Association, American Recreation Coalition, Good Sam Club, Kampgrounds of America, Inc., Motorcycle Industry Council, National Association of RV Parks and Campgrounds, National Park Hospitality Association, National Parks and Conservation Association, National Tour Association, National Trust for Historic Preservation, Outdoor Advertising Association of America, Recreation Roundtable, Recreation Vehicle Dealers Association, Recreation Vehicle Industry Association, Scenic America, and Southern Environmental Law Center.

Below is an article from yesterday's Christian Science Monitor that I think you will find of interest. And here is a snippet from it...

"For example, Environmental Defense recently teamed up with the Political Economy Research Center to protect fisheries. (Environmental Defense is a national research and advocacy organization with a staff of more than 75 scientists, economists, and attorneys. PERC, based in Bozeman, Mont., studies ways to apply "free market environmentalism" to problems involving natural resources and pollution.)"

Under a Bush Presidency, I expect a few groups such as Environmental Defense will move "hard right". I hope Big-Green Groups that are more moderate than ED will move in the other direction. But, who knows? Perhaps they will simply gravitate to where the access/power is.

Scott

At the National Park Service's "Discover 2000 Conference" one of the many workshops was titled: "Parks: Welcoming -- or Exclusionary? "

The session description began with the words:

 A state park director was recently heard to observe that visitors "feel more comfortable" in parks that charge entrance fees -- the implication being that fees keep people who are "different" away.

Can there be a more clear statement that the charging of excessively high entrance fees is discriminatory and is responsible for keeping people, who are supposedly "different," away?

If this form of discrimination is occurring at National Parks or, for that matter, at any other Federally managed public lands, then a crime is being committed.

Executive Order 12898 ("Federal Actions To Address Environmental Justice In Minority Populations And Low-Income Populations") states:

  " Each Federal agency shall conduct its programs, policies, and activities that substantially affect human health or the environment, in a manner that ensures that such programs, policies, and activities do not have the effect of excluding persons (including populations) from participation in, denying persons (including populations) the benefits of, or subjecting persons (including populations) to discrimination under, such programs, policies, and activities, because of their race, color, or national origin."

Unfortunately, nowhere within the NPS summary report for this particular workshop could I find it again acknowledged that user fees are keeping certain populations from enjoying their National Parks. On the contrary, rather than facing the fact that poorer American's can not afford to pay excessive entrance fees, the types of "solutions" offered during this workshops were ones such as the following:

 " Initiate and or expand research on communication issues as they relate to minority use of national parks. Make the parks "real" for all who come to enjoy their national heritage."

Must we (should we?) make the National Parks more "real" .... or did Nature make the parks as real as they will ever be and all that the bureaucrats can do is make these parks more familiar, commercial and crass?

And just how does the NPS propose to make places such as Yosemite or the Grand Canyon more "real" --- surely not by charging still higher entrance fees that will be necessary to recover the construction costs associated with building still more infrastructure?

Scott

PS.... Building more unnatural infrastructure to solve NPS problems was the subject of another very interesting workshop titled:
  " Park Development as a Means of Park Preservation: Tradition -- or Rationalization? "