In recent months I have addressed conferences and meetings all around the country on the subject of the "Recreation Fee Demonstration Program" and have given numerous interviews to the national press. I have used these many opportunities to express the views of Wild Wilderness that Fee-Demo is little more than a national referendum intended to demonstrate that the American public is willing to pay for things that once were considered "amenities". More important than this, I have listened to the concerns of hundreds of land managers, scores of environmental activists and dozens of news reporters. I know what these people are saying about Fee-Demo and it is not what you are being told about this program through official channels.
Fee-Demo is not an effective solution to the problems of deferred maintenance and infrastructure decay occurring upon our nation's public lands. Fee-Demo is simply not working in the way that it's promoters claimed it would. No matter how often top Forest Service officials say that Americans enjoy the new pay-for-play paradigm, the truth is this program is widely unpopular and largely unsuccessful.
I am continually hearing from federal land managers that when introduced, Fee-Demo was embraced as a way to supplement shrunken operating budgets. The idea that fees would be collected and used locally was music to the ears of managers whose operating budgets had been already cut below the levels necessary for even routine maintenance.
But within a year or two of joining the Fee-Demo program, these managers have discovered that their allocated budgets have continued to drop. Instead of Fee-Demo becoming a source of "supplemental" revenue, Fee-Demo is becoming their primary source of revenue. Let me illustrate this point with an example from the Bend-Fort Rock Ranger District of the Deschutes National Forest. This forest is located in Central Oregon and it here where our organization has been an active participant in recreational issues since 1991.
At the time the Deschutes National Forest joined the Fee Demonstration program in 1997 it received $134,900 in allocated funding from Regional Headquarters for the combined categories of "wilderness" and "non-motorized" recreation. In 1998, that figure was reduced to $94,200, but, thanks to Fee-Demo $40,000 has been added back into the budget and is now available for trail maintenance and repair work.
In this specific example, Fee-Demo will replace penny for penny, only as much money as was cut from the budget since this National Forest joined the Fee-Demo program. This story is being repeated on forests throughout the country.
As the US Forest Service transitions from being a provider of natural resource products to a being a provider of recreational products, it is simultaneously being weaned off allocated funding and being forced to become dependent upon monies generated from user fees and other "innovative" sources.
With local land managers beginning to realize that they are being given no option but to create, market and sell profitable recreational products in order to stay in business, a whole new understanding of the true purpose of Fee-Demo is coming to light. Similarly, a growing number of forest users are starting to question whether they wish to see recreation on public lands develop along current lines.
photo credit: The Trailmaster
America's public lands belong to its people. We are the owners of these lands, not customers as we are now referred to with increasing frequency. Nature must not be converted into just another commodity, which can be marketed to paying consumers. Nature is far too valuable for numerous ecological, spiritual and recreational purposes to be managed in the way currently proposed by Forest Service leaders.
Rather than force our nation's land managers into the uncomfortable role of becoming recreational entrepreneurs, our organization suggests that the entire question of how best to manage our public lands must be an issue opened to debate and participation by the entire American public.
It is clear that the US Forest Service is in a state of transition and that the Forest Service of yesteryear will soon be little more than a memory. However, the new Forest Service policies aimed toward greater commercialization, privatization and motorization of our public lands have been largely developed behind closed doors without public involvement and without the input of those on-the-ground land managers most familiar with the real issues and problems facing our national forests.
We would submit that now is the time to rethink the entire purpose and mission of the US Forest Service and to do so in open and public debate. The Demonstration Recreation Fee Program is a perfect example of an poorly conceived, ineffective program, developed and promoted largely by private commercial interests and devoid of public good. America's public lands are a unique treasure and are an amenity of incalculable value. It is in the interest of all Americans to support and protect this remarkable asset, an asset that helps distinguish our country from that of every other country in the world.
Wild Wilderness maintains an extensive Internet site devoted exclusively to the dissemination of information about recreation fees and the changing future of public-land recreation. We can be found at: http://www.wildwilderness.org