I recently spoke with a social scientist who believes National Park Service visitation is poised to collapse in the near future. This prediction is, in part, based upon the fact that the bulk of today's visitation comes from boomers and that there really isn't a continuum of interest extending into younger generations.

The explanation that he will offer is NOT the simplistic 'American Recreation Coalition - Richard Louv' one which claims parks are no fun and are irrelevant to fat kids. It will be far more challenging, more thought provoking and more honest.
 
I am deeply troubled that declining visitation will be used as the chief motivation for the NPS to reinvent (and thus destroy) the parks.  I'm not particularly worried about declining visitation per se ... merely about how the ISSUE will be used and abused by those, such as the ARC, who have long been pushing a particular agenda.
 
If they reinvent the parks, then one of two things will happen. Parks will thrive in their new Disneyland mode --as JUDGED by visitation statistics and revenue generation-- or they will not. In either case, national parks will not be national parks as we knew them or as the Organic Act conceived them.
 
Whereas some in the conservation community believe that too much is being made about declining visitation statistics, I believe we've not seen anything yet.
 
I predict much more will be made of these statistics and that visitation is, in fact, going to continue to decline in the years ahead. The fee-increases set to take place at 88 National Parks and Monuments in 2008 will drag visitation numbers down even further and those declines will provide still MORE impetus to reinvent the parks. The more that visitation falls, the more likely it becomes that the NPS and the Bush Administration will give the  ARC / Recreation / Tourism Industry what they are seeking --- i.e., a commercialized, privatized, and motorized National Park System!!
 
I believe that the NPS / Bush efforts to "fix" the so-called  "problem" of declining visitation are going to make things worse and that visitation will decline even further as a consequence.
 
Here is a link to a speech Michael Frome delivered almost 20 years ago to the day.  When I look back and read these warnings and reflect upon what has already happened to the parks in spite of all of the warnings that were given, I find it frighteningly easy to envision the fate that may yet befall the parks.
 
The combination of the declining visitation issue, the ARC / Richard-Louv mantra, the failure of the conservation movement to become properly engaged and the President's entirely bogus Centennial Initiative are amongst the biggest threats the National Park System faces today.
 
Scott
 

Comments (4) >>

Steve Sergeant said:

This potential collapse of visitation is indeed disconcerting. No question there. Without a majority public consensus that the parks are valuable, why should the government support them? The land managers I talk to are genuinely afraid of this. I also agree that if/when the NPS arm of government does become "drowned in a bathtub", commercial vultures will have tremendous opportunity to move in. This isn't the place for me to lay out my larger theory of why that's happening. But I'll post a teaser by saying that, having worked in the broadcast industry, I put a lot of blame on a culture in which a majority of media is ad-supported, and the majority of messages people retain from that media are commercial in nature. But I fear that you're discounting a very worthwhile body of useful work from someone who is really your ally, namely Richard Louv, because you've seen his work misused by the forces you oppose. I won't defend the contents of "Last Child in the Woods" here, Mr. Louv is capable of making his own argument. But rather, I think you discredit your own cause by not considering Mr. Louv's original work in isolation from the places it's been re-quoted. You admitted to me that you actually haven't read "Last Child in the Woods." I think if you did, you'd find that he's more more of an ally and kindred spirit than you've given him credit.

March 23, 2007

ron said:

I must agree with Scott that the dramatic increases in fees is a factor. I am also concerned about the declining opportunities to camp and stay in relatively inexpensive lodging. In Yosemite, with which I am perhaps most familiar, its a huge issue. Most of you know about the 50% plus decrease in campsite's parkwide, no reason to elaborate further. Also on the books is about a 50% reduction in the old Housekeeping Camp, perhaps the single most popular facility with our Hispanic Community neighbors (along with many others). I hope in the listening sessions we can point out these two issues, at least get a dialog started on them with what appears to be an NPS Director who is listening.

March 23, 2007

Scott said:

Steve, there's nothing wrong with Louv's message. The problem comes from the intentional abuse of that message. Louv's work is not what I question. It is the use and abuse of Louv's work by the recreation industry to advance their long-entrenched agenda, to which I am drawing attention. Louv was just another largely unknown author / reporter until the Outdoor Industry Association and the American Recreation Coalition promoted the heck out of him and his book. They turned Louv and his message into a tool that they could use. Today the recreation industry and Louv enjoy a symbiotic relationship. They keep him in the news, help him sell books and get his message spread. Louv meanwhile signs onto their agenda and provides his name in support of their work. I wonder whether Louv even knows who Derrick Crandall is... really is or if he understands what Crandall really wants? Or perhaps the old Upton Sinclair quote applies to this relationship -- the quote which goes "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

March 23, 2007

Alan Gregory said:

One of the great joys for me of growing up in Idaho, where 75 percent of the land is in public ownership, was being able to literally walk up the street a bit and immediately begin hiking across national forest land. As I grew older, hiking included camping. And canoeing. And birding. And just watching the clouds pass overhead. Kids today don't do these things. At the local high school, they're all wired up with gadgets sticking out of their ears as they walk toward the "prison" gates in the morning. Upon leaving school in the p.m., they climb into the cars their parents acquired for them and head off for parts unknown. I'm not generalizing. This is what I see.

March 24, 2007

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