 Imagine the still-warm body of outdoor recreation lying in a puddle of
blood upon the ground. Standing over the body is the Bureau of Land Management
holding a red-hot smoking gun. Imagine that clear motives for the crime have
already been well established. Such a crime scene exists today.
If you want to read the government's document and would prefer to skip
past my introduction and explanation, then click here now. That link will take
you to a 31 page booklet titled A Unified Strategy to Implement 'BLM's
Priorities for Recreation and Visitor Services' Workplan (Purple Book). If
you'd like a short overview of what's at stake keep reading here.
In 1997, I wrote:
http://www.wildwilderness.org/docs/takeover.htm
Traditional,
rustic, passive and contemplative outdoor experiences must yield to highly
developed recreation as Nature is transformed into a suitable playground for the
spectacle of 'themed' and 'action oriented' entertainment. There is no money to
be made in allowing the public access to Nature simply "as an amenity" or as
"something extra we are privileged to enjoy." Free access must be eliminated
because it would otherwise compete with commercial ventures and would hurt the
bottom line.
As the cost of recreation rises toward its free-market potential,
private sector investors will be encouraged to offer an ever wider array of
commercialized recreation 'products'. We, the 'consumer', will be given the
opportunity to purchase or to forgo these 'products' in accordance with our
willingness and/or our ability to pay. These newly created commodities will
encompass not only those nature-based recreational activities that the we have
traditionally enjoyed on public lands. They will also include entirely new, far
more profitable forms of 'eco-tainment', 'edu-tainment' and
'wreckre-tainment.
I summarized the issue by setting forth what I called the new tenets of
outdoor recreation and expressed those tenets in an essay written in
1998 for High Country News and titled: " Our Public Lands: Their Working
Capital". Here's what I wrote:
1. Public lands recreation must become self-supporting.
2. Public recreation will be priced competitively with private
alternatives.
3. Funds will be preferentially spent near urban centers.
4. 'Under-utilized' resources will be developed to facilitate increased
usage.
5. Partnerships with private corporations shall be sought and
encouraged.
6. 'Nature Interpretation' will be emphasized.
7. Scenic Roads and Byways will be designated and actively promoted.
8. New and imaginative methods of doing business will be encouraged.
9. Land-swaps will be a preferred mechanism for acquiring desired
lands.
10. Wherever practical or feasible, the management of recreation resources
will be turned over to private concessionaires.
I more fully explained those tenets in an essay published under the title
" Nature: Now Available in Designer Colors".
I strongly recommend reading that essay at this time. It proves a clear and
concise prologue to the BLM's Purple Book - Unified Strategy.
Let me be clear about this, though I am today providing evidence
related only to the BLM, all of the land management agencies have similar plans
involving similar tenets. Here, for example is a passage from tenet #4 quoted
from the Army Corps of Engineers' Recreation Partnership
Initiative:
"The intent of the program is to encourage private development of public
recreation facilities such as: marinas, hotel/ motel/ restaurant complexes,
conference centers, RV camping areas, golf courses, theme parks, and
entertainment areas with shops, etc."
Pasted below is text from the inside cover of the BLM's Purple Book
followed by their seven tenets for outdoor recreation. If you've read to this
point, you'll likely find the BLM's tenets remarkably familiar. If you'd review
the articles to which I've linked above, you'll likely gain a more complete
appreciation of why the Purple Book is truly such an important document. And if
you read the Purple Book in its entirety you will know what, exactly, is
contained in the BLM's Unified Strategy for implementing it's prioritized
Recreation and Visitor Services.
Scott
Quoted from:
--- inside front cover ---
Only through the power of Partnerships can we conserve special recreation Places and provide for People on the Public Lands
“Elevating the ideals of the Public Good and Public Service through Cooperative Conservation”
PEOPLE
By using a customer driven approach, we will identify visitor and community resident desires for highly valued recreation experiences and quality of life beneficial outcomes. Emphasis will be on defining a wide range of accessible and highly desirable recreation outcomes accomplished through management, planning, monitoring, and marketing with our managing partners and service delivery providers.
PLACES
Improving our capability to identify and prescribe the more highly valued and distinctive recreation resource conditions and outdoor and community settings, BLM will work together with its partners to provide opportunities for people and communities to attain their desired recreation outcomes.
PARTNERSHIPS
Strengthening our capacity to forge sustainable relationships, increasing support for communities of place and communities of interest, improving business practices, increasing opportunities for volunteerism, and leveraging resources will more effectively engage potential cooperative managing partners and service providers. These relationships ultimately determine the quality of recreation products and services on public lands and in surrounding communities.
BLM must collaboratively identify beneficial outcomes, manage for sustainable setting character, and work through partnerships to affect the quality and kinds of public land recreation opportunities being produced.
APPENDIX B
Seven Key Objectives from
“BLM’s Priorities for Recreation and Visitor Services”
(Purple Book)
Objective 1 - Manage public lands and waters for enhanced recreation experiences and quality of life: This objective includes collaborative recreation management planning; improving the accuracy and consistency of BLM visitor use data; assessing visitor and community residents recreation opportunity and setting preferences; identifying and mapping existing recreation setting conditions; and prescribing essential setting character required to meet public preferences. The intent is to balance all management, marketing, monitoring, and supporting administrative actions to produce experience and benefit opportunities targeted by explicitly stated management objectives in relevant management plans. Workforce efficiency and capability will be improved through training (Goal 2, Objective 1, Purple Book).
Objective 2 - Encourage sustainable travel and tourism development with gateway communities and provide community-based conservation support for visitor services: Includes developing collaborative relationships emphasizing appropriate practices with international and national tourism industry and local communities. Develop sustainable visitor services projects and collaborative strategies to assess socio-economic benefits of recreation and tourism with local governments and private industry, and assess the need for a BLM-administered system of National Recreation Areas. Collaborative recreation-tourism partnerships with local communities and other tourism entities, strategically engage other key providers who influence the ability to provide benefits to visitors and communities. These partnerships are geared to achieve prescribed public land recreation settings and produce the types experience and benefit opportunities targeted by management objectives in management plans (Goal 3, Objective 3, Purple Book).
Objective 3 - Provide fair value and return for recreation through fee collection and commercial services: Includes implementing consistent national fee policies, meeting public requests through the permitting process, being accountable to the public on fee programs, improving and expanding delivery of services through concessions, contracts, and leases, and establishing clear and consistent signing and information for fee sites and facilities. These administrative actions must support management plan prescriptions for recreation settings, marketing actions, and facilitate delivery of experience and benefit opportunities targeted by management objectives in approved management plans (Goal 3, objective 1, Purple Book).
Objective 4 - Establish a comprehensive approach to travel planning and management: This includes both protective travel management planning (such as OHV designations) and proactive management planning (such as routes of travel, monitoring, signing, maintenance, mechanized and non-motorized trail activities). It uses education and interpretation to manage travel, public roads policy, acquiring outside funding through grants, collaboration with other agencies and constituencies, and fully integrating travel management with all programs. An important support function to recreation and visitor services, proactive travel planning and management facilitates maintenance of prescribed recreation settings and production of experience and other benefit outcome opportunities targeted by recreation management objectives in management plans. (Goal 1, Objective 1, Purple Book).
Objective 5 - Ensure public health and safety, and improve the condition and accessibility of recreation sites and facilities: Provide recreation facility accessibility and law enforcement to ensure public health and safety appropriate to the character of recreation settings in which they occur and to the attainment of experiences and benefits targeted by management objectives. Manage and maintain recreation sites and facilities to those same standards. Reduce deferred maintenance and achieve public health standards for critical drinking water and sewer systems. (Goal 2, Objective 3, Purple Book).
Objective 6 - Enhance and expand visitor services, including interpretation, information and education: Visitor services include all information and education, marketing, outreach and interpretation. Improve the accuracy, appearance, and consistency of visitor information, emphasizing both specific experience and benefit opportunities and the recreation setting in which they occur in marketing message content. Improve outdoor ethics and stewardship through tailoring the content of standard user ethics educational materials to match the specific character of diverse public lands recreation settings (Goal 2, Objective 2, Purple Book).
Objective 7 - Encourage and sustain collaborative partnerships, volunteers and citizen-centered public service: Expand opportunities to participate in cost sharing initiatives, engage in long-term volunteer agreements, sustain and increase partnerships and cooperation in recreation and visitor services, and emphasize and support collaborative public outreach that promotes public service and stewardship. Every partnership and its projects must be consistent in supporting management plan prescriptions for recreation settings, marketing actions, and facilitate delivery of targeted experience and benefit opportunities (Goal 3, Objective 2, Purple Book).
|
BLOG 
