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Wild Wilderness believes that America's public recreation lands are a national treasure that must be financially supported by the American people and held in public ownership as a legacy for future generations
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HOME  BLOG Solidarity or Bust
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Written by Scott Silver
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Tuesday, 01 July 2008 |
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What follows is a comment letter sent to the Supervisor of the Shawnee National Forest.
Hurston A. Nicholas, Forest Supervisor
Shawnee National Forest
RE: Shawnee Recreation Fee Comments
Dear Mr. Nicholas,
I can't recall having been to the Shawnee NF and the way things are
going, it's possible I may never get there. That said, I'd like to
keep the option open and have interest in the forest under your
supervision.
There was a time when I avidly explored our public lands. I did so with
the hope and expectation that I'd be pleasantly surprised with what I'd
discover.
Between 1991 and 1994, I slept more than 500 nights with my back upon
the ground at National Parks and upon other public lands from coast to
other (and most points in between). My then infant son, grew up in a
tent. He did not suffer from Nature Deficit Disorder and did not need the FS's More Kids in the Woods marketing promotion.
Shortly after the imposition of the Recreation Fee Demonstration
program I became, in effect, a homebody and my son (now in college) has
almost no interaction with nature or with the lands upon which he grew
up.
Once the FS got into the swing of charging fees, raising fees and
treating outdoor recreation as if it was a commodity to be marketed and
sold to paying customers, my expectation of a visit to the National
Forest inverted. No longer did I set out into the woods with the
expectation of experiencing some unknown delight.
In the new pay-to-play world my expectation was that of fear -- fear
that I'd be disappointed. My fear was that I'd chance upon some
wonderful place and would be prevented from getting out of my vehicle
because I would not pay the fees. I would not pay those fees on moral
principles, because I know the extremist Libertarian ideology that went
into the fee program and because the organization for which I have
served as Executive Director since 1991 is staunchly opposed to the
commercialization, privatization and motorization of public lands --
three threats all directly related to pay-to-play.
In 1996, when Fee-Demo became law, Mike Dombeck, Francis Pandolfi and
Jim Lyons all claimed 800 million annual Forest Service visitors. They
predicted that that number would soon rise to more than a billion. They
stated with pride that in the years to come, Recreation was going to be
the primary business of the USFS. They planned to use the fee authority
to create and market a line of branded products the way Proctor and
Gamble offers its bathroom products. SKI-US, FLOAT-US, HIKE-US, EXPLORE-US, FISH-US were just a few of the products in their new line.
In an effort to hype recreation the 800 million visitor number was, as
was later admitted by the FS, an unfortunate fiction. The number was
revised downward to just over 200 million. Today annual visitation has
fallen below 180 million, as determined by the NVUM process. With gas
prices soaring, visitation will likely drop even further in spite of
all the new and frantic marketing effort being undertaken by the agency
and its partners.
The Forest Service continues to claim that recreation fees do not
adversely impact visitation. The FS continues to claim that their
customers love to pay and that some fraction of their customers think
the fees are too low and wouldn't mind paying more. The FS continues to
deny that the purpose for the fee program is to transform outdoor
recreation from a public good to a product line of salable, market
priced, predigested experiences and to make the agencies financially
self-supporting.
Fortunately the people of Illinois have seen past the deception and
have made it impossible for the Forest Service to claim that their
customers are delighted with pay-to-play. The people of Illinois have
risen up as have the people of the Kern River Valley in California.
They are similarly engaged in a heated battle against the agency's
efforts to create more, and higher, fees and to transform the
relationship of those local folks to their public lands. Congress is
likewise rising up having already introduced FLREA-repeal legislation
in the Senate and soon to follow in the House.
One part of me wants to encourage you to abandon your efforts to push
forward new and higher fees on the Shawnee NF. I empathize with the
local users and would like to support them in solidarity.
Another part of me, however, would enjoy seeing the Shawnee NF become
the powder-keg which explodes and, by so doing, brings down the entire
pay-to-play, Corporate Takeover of Nature, Disneyfication of the Wild,
agenda.
I'm going to conclude this letter by opting for solidarity. I lend my
support to the fee opponents of the Shawnee and do so with the
presumption that the FS will respond with it usual arrogance. If, as a
result of this arrogance, the fee issue explodes in your face, who
knows -- perhaps someday I will take to the road again and pay a visit
to the Shawnee National Forest.
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