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Show Letters to the Editor . . . Dear Sam: I was interested in the 9-11-75 articles pertaining to NPS and USFS solicitation of citizens' ideas to be "considered" "consid-ered" in the planning and management of Natural Bridges Brid-ges National Monument, and, on a grander scale, of our 1.6 billion acres of forestrange lands under USFS management. manage-ment. Although I sympathize with those who are doubtful of the effect their suggestions may have on the decision-making process, I am more concerned over the fact that the agencies are presently so actively attempting to involve their "publics" that management based upon previous "in- house" decisions will be subject to rather dramatic www .. i.hi't.w.' ..,. u-n, changes with possibly negative nega-tive results. The USFS and NPS were established to be or become wise resource managers, and have, since they were established estab-lished in 1905, and 1916, respectively, attempted to employ professionally qualified quali-fied "land managers" whose responsibilities were to the nation as a whole, rather than to be manipulated by often selfish "local interests." One wonders, in view of the present plea for citizen involvement, in-volvement, how the agencies plan to maintain their original mandate for management, and further, why they continue to employ trained land management man-agement personnel if the decisions can be made in public meetings by a minority jmmmrfflmnftTmmtnrfmtmiitmiNmnmnninrliinii : of the affected "ownership" of the public lands. I'm sure, as you suggested in your editorial comments, that many will assume ". . . the NPS is trying to pay lip service to public involvement." involve-ment." From my own vantage point of nearly eight years as an employee of the Department Depart-ment of Interior, six of which were spent with the National Park Service (plus several years spent in rather close academic touch with the land managing agencies since my "defection"to civilian life). I would be reluctant to oppose too strenuously the "Hp service" appraisal. I will readily concede that for too m?ny years NPS decisions affecting the Inter-mountain Inter-mountain West have been made in regional or Washington Washing-ton offices by "accountant-personalities" "accountant-personalities" with no feel for' the problems associated with this part of the nation, and all too infrequently have these decisions been based, even in part, upon input from field personnel experienced in dealing deal-ing with problems peculiar to the Intermountain West. Ob-viously; Ob-viously; management appropriate appro-priate to a Yoscmite or Cape Hatteras might be anathema to a Canyonlands. But to compound the problem of "absentee-landlord-ism" which has tended to reduce NPS management efficiency, by incorporating suggestions from a public whose cry for "bread and circuses" has become a national disgrace is no solution. Social issues arc increasingly so decided: so be it; -people deserve what they are willing to let happen to them. Natural resources, however, how-ever, deserve a better fate than being subjected to the kind of vacillation sure to result from "fiat management." manage-ment." Sincerely, "H" K. Hancock Moab mnniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniimiifliiniiniiiiniiiiinnr;. |