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 These days we hear much from land management agencies in regard to their efforts to price recreation at its correct market value. Today, public land managers look to the prices charged by private recreation alternatives and set the price for public access accordingly.
After they have done so, private recreation provides, no longer being compelled to keep their prices low in order to remain competitive with public alternatives, are able to increase their prices. And, as you would imagine, the spiral repeats. The winners are the sellers of access, both public and private. I needn't remind you who are the intended losers.
That said... there is a darker and much more important issue associated with these efforts to marketize and, specifically to price, everything from Wilderness, to hunting fishing, camping, skiing, boating, and swimming, etc.
Appended are excerpts from a "Proceedings" paper presented 25 years ago. It begins with this question:
[Knowing that a wilderness exists may have value to some people, even if they never visit a wilderness area nor intend to. But why is this value dependent on public ownership of the wilderness?]
The paper's Conclusion begins with these words that pertain to the wholesale disposal / privatization of our publicly owned lands:
[Because of equity difficulties that would inhere in any disposal program and because of a healthy public skepticism about the potential for fraud and give-away, I am doubtful that disposition on a large scale is politically feasible at the present time.]
Contained between those two passages is the reason why today's land managers are obsessed with pricing recreation and with the enforced exclusion of those citizens who are unwilling or unable to pay.
Scott
--- begin excerpts quoted ---
Proceedings: Western Agricultural Economics Association Meetings
July 10-12, 1983 - Laramie, Wyoming
Market Versus Political Allocations of Natural Resources in the 1980s
By Delworth Gardner
<SNIP>
Knowing that a wilderness exists may have value to some people, even if
they never visit a wilderness area nor intend to. But why is this value
dependent on public ownership of the wilderness?
A wilderness of comparable characteristics that was privately owned
would have no less existence value. But would a private wilderness have
comparable characteristics? It is the access problem that is critical.
Several wilderness amenities such as hiking, backpacking, and some
instream water recreation would be difficult to market because access
is costly to control. To some extent also, consumption is nonexclusive.
Although private lands currently supply large quantities of these
public goods because it is simply too costly to forbid consumption, the
private market will not efficiently supply these amenities. It must be
granted, therefore, that the supply of public goods will be below some
theoretical optimum under private ownership. But where is the evidence
that the supply of public goods is closer to optimum under public
ownership?
Much of the argument presented earlier would lead to the a priori
expectation that political allocations are also suboptimal. Only
comparative empirical analysis can reveal whether public or private
management would be more efficient in yielding public goods, and these
studies have not been made.
Nevertheless, opponents of privatization (Bromley) have made much of
the fact that some goods, especially amenity services, are not market
priced and, thus, cannot be efficiently market allocated. Therefore,
"collective" decisions and, by implication, government ownership and
management are required.
Because price denial is not the rationing system used for allocating
most products of the public lands, it is natural that market prices for
these products do not exist. The right question is: could and would
they be priced and market allocated under private ownership? The
correct answer is yes, at least for all nonpublic goods, which would
include all recreation where access can be cost-effectively controlled.
Already we have a wide variety of private markets in hunting, fishing,
camping, skiing, boating, swimming, etc.
<SNIP>
Conclusion
Because of equity difficulties that would inhere in any disposal
program and because of a healthy public skepticism about the potential
for fraud and give-away, I am doubtful that disposition on a large
scale is politically feasible at the present time. But economists are
often very poor at assessing political feasibility. Most of the
efficiency gains are prospective and many of the beneficiaries do not
even know who they are. Current users would be threatened by
privatization unless the disposal policy were clearly favorable to
them. For these reasons, I am doubtful that a significant constituency
for disposal presently exists. In my view, we must have more evidence
that an efficient and equitable disposal policy is available.
I propose that we begin with a small disposal program and be creative
in trying alternative schemes. Perhaps long-term competitive leasing as
proposed by Clawson (1982) should also be tried on an experimental
basis. A public nonprofit corporation operating under a charter that
would require it to raise and sustain private capital and that would
permit it to make all managerial and investment decisions could also be
attempted on an experimental basis (Teeguarden). At the very minimum,
opportunities should be sought to price ration the products from the
public lands after the manner now utilized for timber. This would be a
significant, if limited, step to improve the efficiency of resource
allocation.
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- Privatization 
