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ESA Under Attack From Bushies?

Mar 29th - 12:34pm | MS Kennedy

I'm writing the appropriate congresspeople today. This is typical of the underhanded way this administration has gone about its business from day one. It's time to stop the erosion and destruction of environmental policy in this country.

Mar 28th - 18:39pm | Alan Gregory

Bush = Son of Pombo.

Entrance Fee Hikes: Time to Say No?

Mar 29th - 11:59am | MS Kennedy

Perhaps ecology/environment/personal responsibility for public lands should be taught in all public schools? Seems like kids are ALWAYS turned on by being introduced to just about ANYTHING outdoors, if given the opportunity. Maybe also some kind of Vista-type program for the environment rather than urban areas? Wouldn't it be great if there was a universal draft-for-the-environment?

Mar 29th - 06:51am | Jim Macdonald

If longterm is working community-by-community issue by issue against classism in society (all while linking each issue to the larger problem), I think in the short term that there are solutions that would begin to eliminate class while at the very least not doing any worse ecologically by crown jewel parks.

Mar 28th - 18:52pm | MS Kennedy

OK, Jim, I'm convinced and I agree that this is a class-based debate. I say that I will pay reasonable fees because I CAN pay some fees NOW, but I see those fees rising all the time and understand that I am being cut off from public lands because of lack of money. So what is the solution here? Only the rich should enjoy our crown jewel parks because they can afford to pay the fees?

Mar 27th - 20:25pm | Jim Macdonald

Most poor people will never see one of grand jewel national parks. I've been lucky in my life, and even then, though I planned for instance every year to go to Yellowstone between 1998-2005, I could not possibly scrape the money or the time to go back.

Mar 27th - 18:30pm | MS Kennedy

Hey, I'm one of the "poor" folk you mention. I can't afford $15/20 night camping fees, much less $100/200/night for a hotel room. I splurged last fall and went to Yosemite for 3 days -- camped every night, paid $20/night plus reservation fee plus entrance fee. Campground crowded and falling apart.

Mar 26th - 21:06pm | Ranger X

Matt, Why is public transportation "subsidized" but highway projects are "funded"? You pay only a fraction of the total cost for you to drive your car. Glenn, I'm with you. And some rooms at Crater Lake go for over 200 a night. Who can afford three nights there? That's my rent for a month.

Mar 26th - 12:43pm | Jim Macdonald

All or some, we are still only talking on the utilitarian spectrum; Glenn, all you've done is modify the scope of the spectrum of use, ownership, and therefore entitlement. And, so you are talking about how to shift costs, and the priorities involved with that.

Mar 26th - 11:54am | Glenn Scofield...

However, "poetry" and "commodity" aside, the National Parks are different. They are governed by a sense of democracy. These are literally "the people's parks..." This is not poetry; it is the founding principle of the system. The parks are "set aside" for all Americans - and not just the ones who can afford resort prices, but for all Americans.

Mar 26th - 09:34am | Matt

Jim,

Mar 25th - 23:18pm | lvjzgucqem

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Mar 25th - 21:37pm | Jim Macdonald

So, Kurt, when you read that the parks are simply a marketable commodity defined in terms of their use, it makes you write some of the essays you have about romanticism, eh?

Mar 25th - 16:42pm | Matt

The market will determine the fees. If the seller prices their product too high (a strong argument can be made that this is the case), then people will stop buying it and prices will (eventually, in normal cases) go down.

Mar 25th - 10:51am | kath

If the higher fees mean fewer visitors, great. The land can use a rest from the trampling hordes.

Mar 25th - 07:22am | Ranger X

"If the market determines that $25 is fair value for the benefits and experiences achieved by one's visit, than $25 should be the cost. If demand goes down, so will the price." Wrong. Wrong. And wrong.

Mar 24th - 21:51pm | Matt

I doubt that anyone driving to the Grand Canyon cannot afford to pay $25 to get in. The Flagstaff to Grand Canyon Loop is roughly 200 miles - conservatively estimating vehicle costs @ $0.385 means a family just spent $77 just driving there from the nearest city. Can they afford to drive there but not afford to pay the entrance fee?

Mar 23rd - 13:53pm | jersu

I think another question to ask, is whether the entrance fees are fulfilling there original purpose, which was in-part, to help parks fund projects outside of the scope of the NPS budget. These were supposed to be projects like more wayside interpretive signs, and even to help with the maintenance backlogs. A lot of people stood behind the fees for this reason, including the NPCA -

Retired NPS Employee Laments New 'Loyalty Oaths'

Mar 27th - 09:36am | dasher

I'm guessing Ms. Spude does not mean, literally, "swear an oath". I believe that she is referring to a protocol that requires anyone being placed in a higher position to be first "vetted" by a political appointee. Similar to those seeking positions with the CPA in Iraq being vetted on their political views instead of on their substantive qualifications for the job, with predictable results . .

Mar 27th - 01:45am | Mike Bailey

strange the link above to the "oath" has been removed by OPM, gee I wonder why? Maybe because it is true and they knew it was wrong? The parks belong to all US citizens not the Bush Adminitstration, like all other administrations, they are just the temporary caretakers, and these people have shown they don't care about taking "care" of anything, just how much can they sell it for.

Mar 27th - 00:49am | rablib

Considering the other things these Bu$hies have done, why on earth would you want to give them the benefit of the doubt? I'm leaning toward believing the worst until it's proven different. The track record is horrible.

Mar 26th - 23:57pm | JHS

Asking employees to pledge support for the current policy (just what are these "objectionable" policies, btw?) is a hell of a lot different from asking them to swear a "fealty oath to the administration currently in power".

Entrance Fee Shenanigans

Mar 26th - 21:02pm | Ranger X

Amen brother. You've gotten right to the point. I can't tell you how many times I've been shut down while asking for public information, how many times phone calls and emails have gone unreturned, how many times NPS staff doesn't answer phones.

Have We Lost The Romance of a National Park Visit?

Mar 25th - 21:24pm | Jim Macdonald

"So how do you balance all of this?..." You can't balance it, and that's why I think you have to confront social problems and dynamics in the rest of society if you are going to do anything about parks. We should get out of the business of weaving webs and leave that to spiders.

Mar 25th - 20:38pm | parkaholic

So how do you balance all of this? Reduced improvements in the parks result in less accomodations resulting in higher prices thus eliteism. If you were to increase Yosemites visitation to 6 million then you must have infrastructure to support that i.e. bathrooms,eating establishments etc. Otherwise you limit visitation to no more than X number of people per day.

Mar 24th - 15:28pm | Tim CK

The National Parks visitation is surely down due to high gas prices caused by excessive and radical environmentalism ! ( How irronic ) In addition to this, price gouging by the hotels, restaurants, and general stores are also a major deterrent.

Mar 22nd - 06:24am | Jim Macdonald

Can we really think that we can set places aside based on values that are quite different from those practiced by the public at large and believe that those places can live in relative isolation from those values without over time being infected? I think we know the answer to that.

Mar 22nd - 05:30am | Anne Mitchell ...

Thanks for the mention of my book, Kurt. And I should add that I have two young sons (ages 8 & 10) who absolutely *loved* the Big Meadows Lodge at Shenandoah NP when we visited last summer. It's rustic -- no TV, no Internet -- and, to be honest, somewhat run down (there's your budget issue again), but it had a special coziness that created a sense of adventure.

Mar 21st - 19:30pm | Snowbird

Kurt, I have the original copy of John Muir's book: Our National Parks (published in November 1901).

Grizzly Bears And Their Status

Mar 25th - 14:10pm | phillip summers

i strongly agree with the article that we must not allow polictical satire or any private groups or indviduals to take away the protection act that has enabled a specfic species such as the grizzlies and other related bears to come back to life at such a critical point that has taken several generations(bears)to re populate.their lost to nature and the eco system would even yet be yet our extincti

Mar 23rd - 10:26am | Jim Macdonald

I wrote about this and the week's voluminous news in Yellowstone at: http://www.yellowstone-online.com/2007/03/yellowstone-grizzly-truth.html It's called: Yellowstone: A grizzly truth? I mentioned Kurt's piece on romance in the parks as well.

First Rocky, Then Teddy, And Now Wind Cave

Mar 24th - 18:16pm | jr_ranger

If we hadn't messed up the ecosystem in the 1st place, we wouldn't be having this debate. So instead of messing it up more, we should be restoring it (i.e. reintroducing wolves).

Mar 23rd - 11:10am | ParkRangerX

Put me down for $20 on Zion. Yeah, this is starting to get silly. While natives once hunted in parks, I don't want hunting to resume in every park with high powered modern weapons.

Glacier National Park, Or "Goat" National Park?

Mar 23rd - 03:46am | Cara Fletcher

I am interested if there are touring kayaks because there are many people like me who want to visit the place and try its rivers.:)

Hunting Elk in Rocky Mountain

Mar 21st - 12:27pm | Elizabeth

Oh golly geewillickers Rachel, where could I have come up with such a stupid idea? Oh, yeah, both re-colonization and reintroduction of wolves were options discussed in the draft elk management plan/EIS written by folks who have taken a lot of classes in wildlife management and biology from good (and, even, GOOD) universities.

Mar 20th - 19:07pm | Snowbird

Hey Rachel, about less dude peacock ranches were they raise a few cows and play fake cowboy. Let's give all wildlife a real fighting chance to survive in some real wide open spaces without being snuffed out by some East coast developer who values and cherishes the pocket book more then he does fur, fauna and fin...it's called land ethic's!

Mar 20th - 17:25pm | Rachel

Hey lil hippie girl Elizbeth...why dontcha take some classes in wildlife management and/or wildlife biology from a GOOD university before shooting of your mouth...most places in America are too populated to "re-introduce" wolves...they're not just little puppy-dogs....

Mar 20th - 11:53am | repanshek

Wolves would be nice, though the folks in Estes Park, Loveland, Longmont and even Boulder might not think so....;-)

Mar 20th - 11:48am | Elizabeth

Wolves. Rocky needs wolves.

Mar 20th - 11:20am | repanshek

The concern with transplanting elk is that the animals might be carriers of chronic wasting disease and so it's unfeasible at this point in time.

Mar 20th - 11:14am | Ranger X

Has there been any discussion that you've heard or read about removing elk from the park and re-introducing them to places where they've been extirpated? Or have we re-filled the continent?

They Shoot Bison, Don't They?

Mar 21st - 07:26am | Jim Macdonald

An interesting quote from a Republican from Utah, Bob Bishop - "If that (the disease free herd) is not your greatest value, then there is something deeply wrong with the park service."

Big Cypress: ATVs or Panthers?

Mar 19th - 18:59pm | Alan

This smells of a "big bidness" intrusion. You know, Florida is rapidly approaching New Jersey's status of nearing "build out." http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/20070319_Editorial___Losing_Open_Land.html

God, Geology, and the Grand Canyon

Mar 19th - 12:19pm | withheld

What is not disputed is that GCNP has been polluted by Catholic hate messages in the form of bronze plaques at various points along the south rim. I've seen them myself, and they still make me want to vomit. The obsessed nuns involved chose particulary disgusting phrases from their mythology, demanding that park attendees worship their god OR ELSE.

The $1 Billion Question: Is the Private Sector Up to the Centennial Campaign?

Mar 18th - 21:41pm | Robert DeMaagd Jr.

I'm leary of anything Bush does,especially when it comes to the environment. Does he want to turn the National Parks into some money making Disneyland(sky gondolas,train rides,and pictures with Smokey the bear)? Where are these private contributions coming from ? Are they from people who might have a stake in destroying the forests by building massive hotels and Wal Mart sized souvenior shops ?

What's Going on at the Presidio?

Mar 18th - 15:40pm | jersu

Couldn't it be argued that the Presidio has already been sold off to the nearest bidder? Certainly it now resembles less a national park than it does a business park. Having the Presidio managed as a for-profit unit of the NPS severely weakens the notion that parks are managed first for conservation, then for recreation.

Mar 17th - 13:29pm | lovethepresidio

The Presidio is sitting on that money because it has to become self sufficient, considering it would cost more than the entire National Park Service budget to run the place. How does everyone not get this? It's called a compromise- without commercial business in the Presidio, then it wouldn't be a national park and would be sold off to the nearest bidder.

Endangered Battlefields

Mar 16th - 18:58pm | Snowbird

Ranger X, Doesn't those precious and poetic letters written of the Civil War part of the "big picture"?...the devastation and emotional pain of losing family members...the human carnage and choas of this war is deeply engrained in those scarlet sacred letters. I'm not a historian but I believe Walt Whitman expresses this in his writings. Read his poem on "Drum Taps"!

Mar 16th - 13:53pm | kath

I have a history degree also summa cum laude. I'd challenge you to name a respected Civil War historian who does not want to preserve Civil War battlefields. Many, many people want Civil War battlefields preserved, not just Civil War re-enactors.

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