(National Day of Action to End Forest Fees -- SUPPORT MATERIALS)

The following is an example news releases from which you might wish to borrow ideas when writing your own release. This example was written for an informal protest organized by a number of hiking companions.

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LOCAL HIKERS PLAN USER FEE PROTEST JUNE 15TH AT SSSSSSSS

Contact person: XXXXXX XXXXXXXXX, TEL. (XXX) XXX-XXXX

For the past 100 years, our nation's public lands have been managed so
as to maximize the commodity value that could be extracted from them.
Today, a major shift in federal land management policy is being
developed and implemented. Instead of extracting commodities from
nature, nature itself is being converted into a commodity to be
repackaged, marketed and sold in the form of value-added recreation
products.

"The US Forest Service Recreation Fee Demonstration Program, commonly
known as Fee-Demo, is un-democratic, exclusionary, discriminatory and
some would say, just plain un-American," said ZZZZZZZ-area protest
organizer XXXX XXXXXXXXX. "It violates this nation's long held
tradition of free access to our public lands."

Turning nature into a commodity underlies the Fee-Demo project
authorized on a three year trial basis in 1996 by Congress. Fee-Demo
has become like a vampire that refused to die. On June 15th, all
across America, individuals and over 200 groups and organizations will
be protesting Fee-Demo and what it represents.

According to organizers in ZZZZZZZ, the purpose of the protest is to
communicate with people the importance of keeping our public lands
free and open to the public without encumbering them with unnecessary
or unwanted user fees. "This event is part of a nationwide protest on
June 15th to raise citizens awareness that their public lands and
being taken over by private interests who want to limit our access by
imposing user fees and recreation fees," said XXXXXX. "Ultimately, our
goal is to educate the public and to communicate to Congress, sending
them a message that Fee-Demo is extremely unpopular and is not the way
to fund recreation on public lands."

A history of the USFS fee demonstration project is available from
Scott Silver by calling 541.385.5261 or point your browser to
www.wildwilderness.org

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