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Quoted from the appended article about the continuing fiasco of the Valles Caldera:
[ It's an experiment in the way public lands are managed -- only the Presidio in San Francisco, the military base-turned-park, has a similar governance...
...the board has been focused on the cattle program because -- unlike the fee-based hunting, fishing and recreation programs offered on a limited basis by the preserve -- it was costing money and "just wasn't working very well." ]
The Valles Caldera was to have been an experiment in quasi-privatization of public space. Its Libertarian and Free-Market supporters (of which there are many), had hoped to use the success of the Caldera, operating as a self-funded NOT-TAXPAYER supported preserve, to grease the skids for the privatization of many more public lands. The Valles Caldera experiment was (and still is) of major national significance. It was (and still is) a pilot program for President Bush's "Charter Forest" initiative -- and more.
THE EXPERIMENT HAS FAILED.
And yet there's a lesson to be learned which has NOT yet been learned. As you noted above, the Valles Caldera was to have become self-funded largely through revenues derived from pay-to-play, fee-based, recreation programs -- i.e., through the commodification of nature and the marketing and selling of artificially created, value-added, recreational products, goods and services.
THAT EXPERIMENT HAS ALSO FAILED.
Simply stated, the public wants its public lands to be truly public. So let's move past these ideologically driven, anti-democratic, failed experiments. Let's get back to managing, and funding, public lands for the benefit of the true public. Let the failure of the Valles Caldera experiment serve as an impetus to aggressively protect the remainder of the our Commons from being downgraded into quasi-public properties.
Scott
PS... I have written extensively on this topic and I invite you to read more.
--- begin quoted ---
November 28, 2006
National preserve management draws fire
By DEBORAH BAKER - Associated Press writer
VALLES CALDERA NATIONAL PRESERVE, N.M. -- The slanting rays of the late
afternoon sun turn the thick carpet of grass to gold and steepen the
shadows on the surrounding mountains.
The wind has died down, and the insistent burbling of a narrow, winding
stream is the loudest sound. A pair of hawks swoops low. A watchful
coyote stares from a hillside.
The serenity of the landscape belies its origins: This series of big,
grassy bowls is the interior of a collapsed volcano, which more than a
million years ago spewed ash and lava in a humongous eruption that
helped form the surrounding Jemez Mountains.
"The geology here is singular and interesting ... but what really
attracts people is just the sheer beauty of the place," said William
deBuys, one of the authors of a new book on the caldera and a former
chairman of the board that runs it.
"When you're in the Valles Caldera, everything you see is in the Valles
Caldera with you. The rim completely encloses you, and it's as though
it's a separate, beautiful world."
The Valles Caldera is singular, too, in another way. Purchased six
years ago for $101 million by the federal government, the 89,000-acre
former cattle ranch -- with its meadows, pine forests, hot springs,
streams, volcanic domes and huge elk herds -- is managed not by a
federal agency, but by a board of trustees appointed largely by the
president.
The board's daunting task: protect the land's natural and cultural
resources, provide recreational opportunities, operate it as a working
ranch, and be financially self-sufficient by 2015.
It's an experiment in the way public lands are managed -- only the
Presidio in San Francisco, the military base-turned-park, has a similar
governance -- and one that is now under fire from the same conservation
groups that urged the government to buy the land in the first place.
The Valles Caldera Coalition accuses the nine-member board of poor
management, of dragging its feet on crucial long-term planning, and of
being unresponsive to a public hungering for input and access.
"My take is, we haven't started the experiment yet," said Marty Peale,
coordinator of the coalition, which is considering suing the board over
the planning issue.
The coalition says an event on a Saturday in late August was "the tip of the mismanagement iceberg."
The Valles Caldera was opened to the general public for a first-ever,
free drive-through. More than 3,700 visitors in 1,400-plus vehicles
clogged the preserve's narrow, muddy roads, and hundreds more vehicles
were shut out when the overwhelming traffic problems forced organizers
to close the gate early.
The trust "could not properly design a relatively simple drive-through
event," the coalition complained in a recent letter to U.S. Sen. Pete
Domenici, R-N.M.
Critics also say the board isn't allowing its professional staff enough
leeway. Former New Mexico Land Commissioner Ray Powell quit as the
trust's executive director in 2005 -- after less than a year on the job
-- saying it wasn't a policy-making position.
Powell envisions a world-class preserve with hands-on educational and
scientific programs -- a place "to celebrate the natural world while
learning about it." Such programs could underwrite related ventures, he
says, such as a rim trail around the circumference of the preserve.
Instead, Powell said, the board wanted to focus on the cattle ranching component.
A federal Government Accountability Office report a year ago said the
trust "still has much work to do to meet its goals" -- including
financial viability.
"We've had some rough spots, and that's predictable," board chairwoman
Tracy Seidman Hephner says in response to all the criticism. She likens
it to the post-honeymoon period of marriage: "This is real life; you
have to make it work."
Hephner, a rancher for 32 years, says the board has been focused on the
cattle program because -- unlike the fee-based hunting, fishing and
recreation programs offered on a limited basis by the preserve -- it
was costing money and "just wasn't working very well."
She said the Valles Caldera Trust faces big challenges: The goals
stated in the law must be balanced, staggered terms means board members
change regularly, and the public has "huge expectations about what they
want to see happen on that landscape."
"It doesn't happen as fast as any one of us wants it to," Hephner said.
The day of the August drive-through Hephner was on horseback, chatting
with waiting motorists and asking them how long it had taken to get
through the preserve's gate.
One local man's answer: "Fifty-nine years."
"There really are people who have looked out from the highway and
dreamed about what it would be like to be on that place for years," the
chairwoman said.
Roughly 75 miles from Albuquerque and 50 miles from Santa Fe, the
Valles Caldera has been used by humans for thousands for years -- for
hunting, for gathering food plants and obsidian for tools, for sacred
rituals, more recently for running sheep and cattle.
The biggest of its grassy bowls is the Valle Grande, almost four miles
across, visible from a state highway that cuts across the southeast
edge of the caldera. The stunning view prompts many motorists to put on
the brakes, get out the binoculars, and peer at the massive herds of
elk, like so many black dots in the valle.
While there are only a handful of structures on the property, it is not
a pristine wilderness. There are nearly 1,500 miles of logging roads,
and 40,000 of the caldera's 65,000 forested acres have been timbered.
"What you've got is an absolutely magnificent environment that has been
severely compromised, so you need the emphasis on restoration," Powell
said.
Powell and the coalition say what's needed is long-term planning that
takes into account all the competing interests and views -- and for
that, the public must be involved.
"What I have learned is if you're not experiencing something directly,
you're not going to care for it and you're not going to fight for it,"
Powell said. "If people feel like they can only look across the fence
line, the place is doomed."
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- Privatization 
