|
Derrick Crandall, President of the wise-use American Recreation Coalition, is one of the slickest lobbyists in Washington DC. If you've ever heard him speak, you'll know he comes across like warm lard. Some people lap it up. Others is sickens. Pasted below is a presentation Crandall gave 10 days ago.
If you can get past its warm lardy texture, buried within the fat are several choice morsels.
Here's one:
Starting tonight leaders of key public and private organizations will gather not far from here to ponder the message in a recent book entitled Last Child in the Woods, a disturbing story of societal change that is erasing the watermark that our Great Outdoors has had on generations of Americans up to today. To some, these challenges are unfortunate but inevitable. To others, the threats generate passion so strong that radical solutions become goals.
I'll leave it to you to find others.
Scott
---- begin quoted ---
http://www.southeasttourism.org/06federalsummit/whitepaper_final.doc
Southeast Tourism Society
3400 Peachtree Road, Suite 725
Atlanta, GA 30326
www.southeasttourism.org
SEPTEMBER 6-8, 2006
Federal State Tourism Summit - Partners Working for Tourism
<snip>
(Presentation on Panel: "Achieving a greater understanding of the need
for resource stewardship and the importance of partnerships between the
private sector and federal agency managers")
Partnerships in the Great Outdoors Today and Tomorrow
By Derrick Crandall, President, American Recreation Coalition
Tens of millions of Americans today participate in dozens of diverse
outdoor recreation activities. We swim and we fish. We ski and we
bike. We hike and paddle. We camp and we sail. We drive 4x4s and
watch wildlife.
And we create memories - indelible memories. The beauty of a sunrise.
The dance of aspen trees on a mountainside in the fall. A vast alpine
meadow bursting with color and bordered by a bright blue sky. The
power of thunder and lightning moving across a western sky. The grace
of a string of pelicans riding the wave of air created by breaking
surf. A circling osprey - and its power-dive to snare a fish.
The smiles and sense of achievement shared with family and friends
after descending a black diamond chute or a Class IV rapid. The
inspiration of a sunrise, and the taste of a s'more hot off the fire.
The satisfaction of reaching a summit and its panorama after a long and
tiring climb. The silence of a landscape coated with a new mantle of
white, powdery snow. The excitement of finding a fresh print of an
animal on the very trail you are walking. A gentle rainbow created by
a crashing waterfall. Marmots sunning on rocks. A moose you can't see
- but you can hear and smell.
These are gifts of the outdoors. These are the magnets that lure us.
And these are a legacy which each one of us must commit to protect and
to share.
Every one of us - 300 million Americans - shares ownership of public
lands and waters covering one in three acres of this great nation.
These are a colorful collage of parks and refuges, of forests and
seashores. Together, they are an important element in unifying our
nation. The Grand Canyon belongs to each one of us - and so does the
Washington Monument and vast Wilderness areas in Alaska. It is a
diverse array of landscapes and places. Some have unique beauty.
Others are steeped in history. Some play vital roles in our daily
lives, supplying water or forest products.
This Great Outdoors, this tremendous legacy, is partly accidental - the
result of a landscape recently settled in comparison with European and
Asian societies. Yet much of it exists by conscious action - the
result of generations of Americans before us who had vision and
commitment. Vision to create the world's first national park system,
now boasting 390 units. Vision to create a national wildlife refuge
system, a system that aids both wildlife and those of us who gain
big-time from encounters with wildlife in natural settings.
And today, we understand the multiple values and benefits conveyed to
us by those with vision and commitment. We understand that these
places help us counter an increasingly sedentary society with places to
be active with smiles on our faces. We understand that these places
help us deal with traffic jams and ringing phones and email spam and
non-stop bills and flat tires and the non-stop pressures of 21st
Century life.
The history of our Great Outdoors over the past century is replete with
heroes and successes - and challenges. We have added substantially to
our systems of parks and forests and refuges over past decades. We
have added new systems of Wilderness and Wild and Scenic Rivers and
Scenic Byways. We have secured major flows of dollars from the Highway
Trust Fund to capture abandoned rail lines for reuse as recreational
trails - more than 13,000 miles since 1980 - and to maintain roads and
trails in national parks and on other public lands. In some cases,
political leaders led the way - earmarking receipts from the sale of
non-renewable public assets such as off-shore deposits of oil and gas
for land acquisition. In other cases, citizen activists had led the
way. Hunters and anglers have funded land acquisition and habitat
improvements through fees and special taxes - billions of dollars in
such special payments. Individuals have made incredible philanthropic
gifts - Grand Teton National Park, for example, is largely the result
of a Rockefeller family gift.
Yet many Great Outdoor places of past generations are gone, replaced by
indoor spaces - homes and malls and offices. And other Great Outdoors
stages are the sites of conflicts - social and environmental, some
involving recreation and some involving other uses of natural
resources. And a clear pattern is emerging: while large numbers of us
use and enjoy the outdoors, the overall percentage of Americans doing
so is in decline AND benefits from time outdoors is becoming more
unique to white, affluent Americans. Fewer people visit our national
parks and Wilderness areas today than twenty years ago. In fact,
starting tonight leaders of key public and private organizations will
gather not far from here to ponder the message in a recent book
entitled Last Child in the Woods, a disturbing story of societal change
that is erasing the watermark that our Great Outdoors has had on
generations of Americans up to today. To some, these challenges are
unfortunate but inevitable. To others, the threats generate passion so
strong that radical solutions become goals.
And it is within this mix of challenging trends and strong emotions
that leaders of America's recreation and tourism communities must
emerge as societal leaders regarding America's Great Outdoors. We must
accept a starring role - lending our hands and our wallets to an issue
that will ensure that the nation our grandchildren and their
grandchildren inherit will be as healthy and inspirational as our
nation is today. We must protect that which we have inherited, use it
wisely for the many benefits provided, and actually contribute anew to
this estate. Business leaders in recreation and tourism, especially,
must take on leadership roles, both because it is the right thing to do
and because it is in our own best interests. Our customers seek clean
air, clean water, outdoor beauty. They stay in our lodges and hotels
not to watch the same television shows available at home, but to have
adventures in the Great Outdoors. They buy our RVs and boats and other
recreation items to pursue their passions outdoors.
It is vital to assess the appropriate roles individuals, non-profits,
the recreation and tourism industries and government agency employees
can and should play in sustaining America's Great Outdoors and our
opportunities to benefit from it, working as partners, with each
contributing special resources and capabilities. We need to assess
ethics training, environmental education and interpretation. We need
to fully embrace the concept of volunteerism on public lands - and
expand participation dramatically. And we need to create forums for
exploring and adopting creative approaches to managing environmental
and social challenges and potential challenges.
Derrick Crandall, President
American Recreation Coalition
1225 New York Avenue, NW Suite 450
Washington, DC 20005
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
';
document.write( '' );
document.write( addy_text93285 );
document.write( '<\/a>' );
//-->\n This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
|
- Privatization 
