(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 comes from Keep the Sespe Wild and Free Our Forests.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 6/6/02 Contact: Alasdair Coyne Phone: 805-921-0618 GRASS-ROOTS MOVEMENT TO STAGE NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION ON FOREST FEES Across America on June 15, concerned citizens and organizations will come together in solidarity to preserve the 100-year legacy of open access for all to public lands unadulterated by commercial interests. This National Day of Action has been organized around the issue of the Recreational Fee Demonstration Program (Fee Demo) in existence on public lands for the last 6 years. Over two dozen events are planned to take place in the states where Fee Demo has been put into effect. Introduced in 1996, Fee Demo allows the charging of access and user fees on Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Fish & Wildlife Service, and Park Service lands. Historically, only the Park Service has charged access fees while the other agencies have only been permitted to impose campground fees. This summer, hearings are planned in Congress on legislation to make Fee Demo permanent. "If this program becomes permanent, it marks a whole new era in the way Americans relate to their wild lands," says Michael Zierhut of Free Our Forests in Ojai, California. "When even nature itself is commodified, our society will have completely severed itself from our connection to the land. We're organizing to maintain public lands held 'in the public trust' in the tradition of Theodore Roosevelt and John Muir." Like many of those taking part in the National Day of Action, this issue is Zierhut's first involvement in activism. In fact, in California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Colorado, and New Hampshire, citizens concerned about the commercialization of public lands have started groups specifically to maintain public lands management in their current state and stop Fee Demo from becoming permanent. The movement has expanded across the political spectrum from off-roaders to environmentalists, conservatives to liberals, Republicans to Democrats. The opposition has grown so large that over 240 organizations around the country have taken position against permanent authorization of Fee Demo. No similar grass-roots movement supporting Fee Demo has emerged in the six years of the program. Opponents of Fee Demo raise many concerns about the program. Many call it double taxation since, even with Fee Demo, tax dollars must be appropriated to fund public lands. Many environmentalists see an inherent problem in a system where logging, mining, and grazing industries receive subsidies from tax-payers while average citizens must pay to enter the same land they supposedly own. Off-road vehicle enthusiasts, weary of continuing closures of pubic lands, see Fee Demo as a further affront. "We don't like the fact that the Forest Service is closing areas of public lands while at the same time charging fees to exclude more people," says Ron Kibbe, President of Gold Coast Cruisers, an off-road vehicle organization based in California. "The National Forests are our American heritage." Perhaps the biggest problem with Fee Demo raised comes from the exclusionary impact on low-income citizens of a fee to recreate on public lands. In a study published in 1999, Thomas More of the Forest Service's Northeast Research Station in Vermont found that the fees implemented under Fee Demo in the White Mountain National Forest "significantly discriminate against low-income people." Fee Demo opponents also worry about the partnerships between private interests and the government that Fee Demo authorizes. They point out that a recreation lobby known as the American Recreation Coalition made up of over 120 associations and corporations including Disney, Kampgrounds of America, and Coleman has been the primary supporter of Fee Demo from the start. An arm of the ARC called the Recreation Roundtable referred to Fee Demo in a 1998 letter to the Secretary of Agriculture as "the direct result of our efforts." Citizens worry that ARC members are looking to gain managerial control of public lands. They believe that the private sector will put its own interests above the public interest if they become the managers of public lands. The organizers of the Day of Action feel strongly enough about the influence of the private sector that they have planned their action to coincide with an ARC-sponsored event in Washington, D.C. called Great Outdoors Week. During the week, members of the recreation industry meet privately with legislators and officials in public lands agencies to discuss their ideas for shaping recreation on public lands. "The concept of the common good is being squeezed out of public lands management by the ARC," according to Zierhut. "If the ARC wins this fight, in the long run, we will see public lands recreation become increasingly out of reach for many Americans. And coming on the heels of that, there will be greater commercial development of public lands until one day we'll wake up and see Disney-like resorts popping up on our once-public lands." For more information: Day of Action web page http://www.wildwilderness.org/docs/2002doa.htm Free Our Forests http://www.freeourforests.org American Recreation Coalition http://www.funoutdoors.com ------- END -------