Distemper Fi (7/2/98)

 
PRIVATIZE THIS: Some people might think me paranoid; I prefer to regard my condition as one of vigilant caution. Like the Pinkertons, I never sleep. I can't afford to. None of us can, really. While we slumber, the Walt Disney Corp. is hatching new plans for world domination. Or at least control of our national forest system. Sure, this sounds farfetched, even to me. But bear in mind that today's lunatic is tomorrow's visionary. As always, you heard it here first. Disney is a sustaining member and leading player in a nefarious conspiracy hatched by the American Recreation Coalition--ARC--a cabal of greedy special interests far more insidious than anything concocted by the X-Files. Outdoor recreation generates about $400 billion a year. Of that, $100 billion comes from people who visit and camp on land owned and controlled by the U.S. Forest Service, which in Santa Barbara means Los Padres National Forest. Other ARC members include Exxon, the American Petroleum Institute, Chevron, KOA, REI, the NRA, and the Association for Nude Recreation. Through ARC, Disney and others have been pushing to turn over the national forests to private concessionaires so they can charge us to enter and enjoy what's already ours. Pretty slick, eh? But it ain't quite that easy.

For those hoping to capitalize on the blossoming "ecotainment" dollar, there are serious obstacles to be overcome. Some howl about the blasphemy in charging people to tread on public land. And there are those who argue that only a fool pays to use something he already owns. And after all, we've been visiting the forests for free for nearly 100 years, why should we have to pay now? (See Keith Hamm's article on page 21.) Being no dummies, the folks at ARC realized they needed a good crisis. Fortunately for them, they had one at hand in the prolonged budget crunch of the 1980s and early '90s. That's when the Forest Service saw its budget relentlessly trimmed, pruned, slashed, and hacked. At the same time, demand for recreational use of Forest Service land skyrocketed, as did the associated maintenance costs. Caught in this fiscal cross-fire, the Forest Service--many of whose administrators were anti-government zealots and free-market privateers appointed during the Reagan-Bush years--rolled over and played dead. Recreation, after all, was just a sidelight for these guys, not something worth fighting for. Their main gig has always been building new access roads to accommodate the timber industry, whose royalty payments to the feds have never even approximated the real costs borne by the taxpayers.

Two years ago, the Forest Service contracted with the dubiously named Pyramid Enterprises to erect a kiosk and collect tolls from people going to the campgrounds on Paradise Road and the upper Santa Ynez River. For this, the Forest Service would skim its cut off the top, and Pyramid would ensure the presence of toilet paper in the outhouses. Then a new federal law allowed the Forest Service to charge everyone going anywhere in Los Padres, not just Paradise. Thus was born the dreaded Adventure Pass program in which people are charged $30 a year, or $5 a day, for the privilege of setting foot on national forest soil. Both are part of an increasingly slippery slope that will lead us to the unhappy reality where spectacular sunsets are regarded as "product," streams and creeks as "commodities," and hikers as "customers."

Number Two in command at the Forest Service is Francis Pandolfi, an accomplished mass marketeer formerly with Times Mirror Publishing and former chairperson of the Recreation Roundtable, on which Disney also sits. The L.A. Times (owned by Times Mirror Publishing) quoted Pandolfi last year explaining how "the Forest Service needs brand managers and they will manage their brands the way Procter & Gamble [makers of Olestra] manages its brand." Singing off the same page was James Lyon, undersecretary of the Department of Agriculture, under whose jurisdiction the Forest Service operates. Lyon recently described the great outdoors as "a diverse and spectacular portfolio," elaborating how he has developed a "marketing strategy and an icon that we hope will become to outdoor recreation what the Nike swoosh is to sporting goods and that famous Mercedes-Benz hood ornament is to automobiles." Yoikes!

When I called Disney, its spokespeople denied having anything to do with the Adventure Pass. Disney, by the way, is discovering that this nature business isn't as simple as it looks, as 27 of the specimen animals slated to populate its new Animal Kingdom Park died before its grand opening last year. But Rich Tobin of Los Padres--who denied emphatically that the forest would be Disneyfied--readily acknowledged that he consulted with Disney on how to run the program when the Adventure Pass was still on the drawing boards.

There are tensions within this movement, however. For example, ARC lobbyist Derrick Crandall, speaking before a congressional subcommittee this February, defended the Adventure Pass against all those who insisted on confusing public ownership with free access. Crandall, by the way, specifically mentioned the Disney role in devising the Adventure Pass program. But he also insisted that the Forest Service lacks the necessary business skills to run the recreation biz on its own and stressed the absolute necessity of having the private concessionaires manage wilderness. Ah, wilderness! Pretty soon, exact change will be required. And when the black helicopters show up, they'll be wearing mouse ears. Remember, you heard it here first.

--Trixie