This article first appeared in The Santa Barbara News-Press.
It is being archived on the web by Wild Wilderness.
NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITERS
Nearly a century ago, in the age of the robber barons, President Theodore Roosevelt set aside 150 million acres of forest land, saving them from corporate plunder for future generations to enjoy.
When Roosevelt took office in 1901, vast areas of the West were still wild and few saw the need to restrict expansion. Public lands were given away on the cheap in the name of profit and progress.
Roosevelt, an adventurer and a naturalist, had a drastically different philosophy. He believed there could be development on forest lands, but within limits and forever watched over by a government free of self-interest.``The rights of the public to the natural resources outweigh private rights,'' Roosevelt wrote in his 1913 autobiography. ``... Even more important was the taking of steps to preserve from destruction beautiful and wonderful wild creatures, whose existence was threatened by greed and wantonness."
Today, some defenders of the forest believe the robber barons are back and this time Roosevelt is not around to swing a big stick and protect the public trust.
Congress, they contend, has slashed forest budgets to make room for corporate partners on public lands.
Since 1995, Congress has cut the recreation budget of the forests by $96 million, or 26 percent. Meanwhile, the backlog in repairs and maintenance at forest campgrounds and trails has grown to $1 billion.
The ties between top Forest Service officials and chiefs of industry recently led to an entrance fee program in some national forests. The idea to charge for a walk on public lands came from the private sector.``Corporate-financed congressmen, cash-strapped land managers and recreational industry leaders are working cooperatively to create an entirely new way of managing the forest,'' said Scott Silver, an environmental activist in Bend, Ore., where anti-fee sentiment is high. ``Their efforts are being directed toward maximum commercialization, privatization and motorization of our natural heritage."
Silver is at the center of a fledgling movement to protect American forests. He believes that if Americans don't wake up, the recreation industry will soon call all the shots in Washington, and the sanctuary of the wild lands will be spoiled.
He gets nervous when Mike Dombeck, head of the U.S. Forest Service, calls the agency ``the Proctor & Gamble of outdoor recreation."
``It baffles me,'' Dombeck recently told a group of ski industry executives, ``that the Department of Agriculture tracks the value of soybeans, corn, or wheat to the penny by the day, yet rarely is recreation and tourism on federal lands understood as a revenue generator. Instead, it has been perceived as an amenity, something extra we are privileged to enjoy. Fortunately, that's beginning to change."
THE LAND OF THE FEE
Nowhere is the change more apparent than in Los Padres National Forest, Santa Barbara County's backyard preserve, where visitors must now pay a fee to park at a trailhead, by a river, or along a road.
The Adventure Pass, as the fee is called, costs $5 per day per car, or $30 per year. It is part of a pilot program at selected forests around the country, proposed by the recreation industry and approved by Congress in 1996. The pilot program is scheduled to end in 1999, at which time Congress may make the fees permanent.
But if hundreds of Los Padres users have their say, the program will be scrapped forever. A new and strident local group called Free Our Forests has joined Keep the Sespe Wild, a seasoned environmentalist organization in Ojai, to urge a boycott of the Adventure Pass.
Their members view the pass as double taxation. But what really makes them angry is the idea that this land is no longer their land - that they have to pay to get in.``I have always believed that the Forest Service lands belonged to all Americans,'' said Alasdair Coyne, an Ojai resident and a founder of Keep the Sespe Wild. ``How meaningful is the `land of the free' when they are charging us just to walk in our national forests? It's not a matter of the amount of money. It's a question of the principle."
These opponents see the pass as one more step in an ongoing campaign in which the Republican-led Congress cuts the forest budget, forces the public to swallow fees, and turns over the forest management to the likes of Disney, KOA and REI.``We expect Congress to maintain the forest, and Congress has failed in that regard,'' said Kevin Looper of Santa Barbara, a member of Keep the Sespe Wild. ``They have given up on the idea of conservation. This fee program is really not about funding - they're looking at the wrong source of funds. It's about privatizing the forest."
This year, the fee program is expected to generate $18 million. At that rate, it would take 55 years to erase the $1 billion backlog in repairs.
In Los Padres, the Adventure Pass generated $213,000 in fees in the first nine months of the program. But Congress has cut Los Padres' recreation budget by $608,000 since 1995.
Some lawmakers, most notably Sen. Frank H. Murkowski, R-Alaska, who chairs the Senate committee that oversees the forests, have suggested more drastic steps may be necessary. They are looking into ``custodial management,'' in which funding would be provided for only the most basic forest programs, like firefighting and land surveys.``Since you seem bent on producing fewer and fewer results from the National Forests at rapidly increasing costs, many will press Congress to seriously consider the option to simply move to custodial management of our National Forests in order to stem the flow of unjustifiable investments,'' Murkowski wrote to Dombeck earlier this year.
TRASHING PUBLIC LANDS
Los Padres Supervisor Jeanine Derby believes the fees are here to stay.``When recreation is put in the picture with the military and the social ills of the country, Congress views it as expendable,'' she said. ``The concept that nature is free: That just is not true within a population base of 30 million people adjacent to the four national forests in Southern California."
Since the passage of Proposition 13 in 1978, which lowered property taxes, Californians have become accustomed to paying $5 a day to use state parks and beaches. Many cities, including Santa Barbara and Carpinteria, now charge the public to park at the beach.
In the same way, forest officials say, the public will come to accept the necessity of the Adventure Pass. Many campgrounds and trails in Los Padres are in such deplorable condition that it appears no one is in charge. In the past, vandals have burned picnic tables, torn off restroom doors and yanked road barricades out of the ground.
Miles of trails are choked with vegetation and awaiting funds for maintenance. Important archeological sites with cave paintings have been closed for years because there is no money to pay a ranger to supervise the public there.
With all the repair work to be done, interpretive services - from ranger talks by the campfire to information on the Internet - have been dramatically curtailed.``It's an embarrassment that this is the best we can do,'' said Rich Tobin, who runs Los Padres' recreation programs. ``We all want these public resources to be better managed. We're all on the same side of the fence. We should be working together because we have the same goals."
The Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, an advocacy group based in Oregon, has not taken a position on the fees. But the organization's executive director, Andy Stahl, says the fees are only fair, given the damage that people do to nature.``When a pulp mill pollutes the water, it has to pay. When a recreational user tramples a trail, he also should pay,'' Stahl said. ``Anyone who thinks recreation does not impose a cost on the environment is wrong."
Under the current fee program, 57 of America's 155 national forests are charging fees, and 89 forests will be collecting fees by the end of the year.
The Adventure Pass is required in the four forests in Southern California - Los Padres, Angeles, Cleveland and San Bernardino national forests. Because of their proximity to large urban areas, these forests are the key to the success or failure of the pilot program.
In Los Padres, the pass is required to park a car. In the Shasta-Trinity National Forest in Northern California, climbers must pay if they plan to go above 10,000 feet to the summit of Mount Shasta. At Mono Lake in Inyo National Forest, a $2-per-adult fee is required to walk to the lake. In Oregon, visitors pay a $3 pass to park at a trailhead. And some forests charge an entrance fee for their visitors' centers.``Nobody's going to love something like this 100 percent,'' said Linda Feldman, a spokeswoman at the Forest Service headquarters in Washington, D.C. ``But we're finding that even where there's some resistance, people are accepting the fees. You get used to it."
Unlike tax dollars, 80 percent of the fees stay in the forest where they are collected. Only 20 percent goes to Washington, D.C., to be spread among other forests across the nation.
The lion's share of the fees goes for the salaries of new forest employees. In Los Padres, five full-time Forest Protection Officers have been hired. They sell passes and give out notices to violators; but they are not presently enforcing the $100 fine.
They also pump out toilets, fix restrooms, remove graffiti, haul trash, extinguish campfires, paint picnic tables, install barbecues and pick up dirty diapers.
Officials say the mere presence of employees at forest campgrounds has cut down on vandalism.``The Adventure Pass dollars are indeed making a significant difference,'' Tobin said.
But fee opponents fear that the entrance price to the forests, traditionally the common man's playground, will inevitably go up - as they have in some national parks. It costs $20 per week, for example, to visit Yosemite National Park by car.``While to many of us, these fees don't seem too high a hurdle, they mask a dangerous elitism in access to public lands,'' said Looper. ``There are a great many people who live in close proximity to the forest and who use it every day, and who aren't the weekend warrior city types. For those people, the fees can be quite daunting."
Looper and hundreds of other activists around the country wonder why Congress doesn't stop spending millions of tax dollars yearly on subsidies for private logging, grazing and mining operations in the forest.
In June, the Forest Service announced losses of $89 million in its 1997 timber sales program. For the first time, in addition to the decline in timber sales, the balance sheet reflected the real cost that the taxpayers incur when the Forest Service builds roads for private logging companies.
THE PITCH TO INDUSTRY
These days, forest officials are openly courting the manufacturers of off-road vehicles and sporting goods to make ends meet.``Recreation is big business on the national forests,'' James Lyons, an Agriculture Department undersecretary, told a gathering of recreation industry executives in Washington last month.``We're looking toward the private sector to provide more support for national forest recreation - for an expanded partnership with those who realize an economic benefit from recreation on the public lands.... We've got a great product to sell. And with your help, we can make it even better!''Lyons' speech was delivered during Great Outdoors Week '98, an event sponsored by the American Recreation Coalition to bring together the government officials who manage public lands and the executives who sell motorcycles, snowmobiles, canoes, power boats, motor homes, personal watercraft, trailers and backpacks.
The coalition's 110 members include The Walt Disney Co., Yamaha Motor Corp. U.S.A, Chevron Corp. and Exxon Co. Others are the Kampground Owners Association (KOA), the National Rifle Association, the Resort and Commercial Recreation Association, the American Horse Association and the American Association for Nude Recreation Inc.
The ongoing fee program itself is the brainchild of the recreation coalition, and the recreation industry supplied the marketing expertise to sell the idea to the public.``We would love to see recreation on the public lands free,'' said Derrick Crandall, the coalition president. ``But when our trails are falling apart and our campgrounds are no longer servicing the demands of the public, we have to do something. I don't think it's pricing people out. The real injustice is when you don't charge anything.``We constructed the fee program working carefully with Capitol Hill. We brought in REI, L.L. Bean, KOA and Disney at sites across the country. The Forest Service doesn't know who its customers are. We said, `Here's how you reach your customers.' ''Crandall envisions a future in which more forest campgrounds are managed by private concessionaires. He sees a role for private firms in the filming of videos for visitor centers. He believes the private sector is better equipped than government to build boat launching ramps in the forest.
To illustrate how well industry gets along with the Forest Service, Crandall pointed to the outdoor recreation information center at REI's new flagship superstore in Seattle. It is staffed by Forest Service, U.S. Bureau of Land Management and National Park Service employees.``Maybe there's a shopping mall or a hotel that wants to do something,'' Crandall said.
DOING BUSINESS IN THE FOREST
But the idea that private industry is influencing policy and profiting from the public lands is anathema to some forest advocates. They do not oppose private concessionaires for campgrounds because, they say, the Forest Service shouldn't be in the business of changing toilet paper. Three concessionaires are operating 12 campgrounds in Los Padres, including some along Paradise Road in the Santa Ynez Valley.
But if private industry takes a larger role, these critics say, the Forest Service will surely abandon its mandate to protect the natural resources.``You want to believe that the Forest Service is about protecting the forest,'' Looper said. ``You don't think of them as a holding company, preserving the resources for private interest."
Stahl said the forest employees ethics group does not want ``to see recreation become the new timber industry."
``We have gone through a generation of having timber calling the shots because they provided money, and the Forest Service used the money to maintain its bureaucracy,'' he said. ``Poorly conceived and managed recreation can be just as damaging as logging."
In their efforts to woo the industry, forest officials like to quote statistics showing that half the visits that Americans make to public lands occur in the national forests. By 2000, they say, recreation in the forest will be contributing $100 billion per year to the nation's Gross Domestic Product, compared to $3.5 billion from logging and $1 billion from grazing.``With that in mind, consider the perspective of the manufacturers of outdoor equipment, or the ski industry, or the hotels in Santa Barbara, for that matter,'' said Tobin. ``It's important to have attractive, healthy, safe national forests for people because they purchase backpacks, ski equipment and stay in hotels.``The emphasis has shifted to recreation as an important economic engine. ``We want to work with the private sector. It's nothing to be ashamed about."
Francis Pandolfi, the No. 2 official in the U.S. Forest Service, says that in an era of downsizing and increased demand, public-private partnerships will help open the forests to everyone who wants to use them. And, he asked, why shouldn't the private sector make a profit on public land?``Boat marinas are a good example of the kind of partnership that makes sense,'' Pandolfi said. ``There's a place where capital investment is needed - to build docks. People cannot enjoy the area if those facilities don't exist."
Pandolfi came to the Forest Service in 1997 with 30 years' experience in private industry. Prior to his appointment, he was president and chief executive officer of Times-Mirror Magazines and a former chairman of the Recreation Roundtable, a group of executives from the nation's most prominent recreation companies. Crandall, of the American Recreation Coalition, is the roundtable executive vice president.
These are the links that forest activists find just a little too cozy.``I think it shows the extent to which the American Recreation Coalition lobbyists have taken over the upper levels of the Forest Service,'' said Looper. ``The fact is, we own the forest, and these lands and our use of them don't have to be justified by the return on investment."
Pandolfi said he was aware that critics might envision mobs of people and lines of RVs descending on the federal lakes and ruining the environment if, for example, new boat ramps and docks are built.``The marketplace itself adjusts for crowds,'' he said. ``If there are too many people, they'll stop going.... I personally don't have any real patience for preservationists, people whose opinion is you should lock it up."
And what about Roosevelt's concerns for preserving nature from destruction?``I think that what Teddy Roosevelt said and meant, when interpreted in the light of what people do today, is to provide the best possible opportunities for them, while being sure that the lands are available for future generations,'' Pandolfi said.