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Show ‘demo; the USFS never would |" have wasted hic kind of money. Even sadder—-had it not been for fee-demo and the Forest Service’s uber-ego, this fiasco would never have happened and what had been the grandest view in Colorado would exist today. Contrary to a popular myth some like to spread, fee-demo is about more than keeping outhouses stocked with toilet paper. This . message is something the general public (and congress) needs to hear!! Your See to the editor on this subject would ‘be much appreciated. SILVER BULLETS From. LUXURY CAMPING ON PUBLIC LANDS If the phenomenon of "luxury camping" were limited to private campgrounds on private lands, I'd be the first on to say:-"Great---let the private sector provide a Fantasy Island Experience for everyone who wants, and can afford, one." es Unfortunately, there are commercial interests looking at public lands to provide such experiences ... and with that I have major problems. (Actually, there are commercial interests already offering luxury camping experiences within designated Wilderness areas... Somewhere near the Edge... but that is a story onto itself!) Through the magic of fee-demo, public land managers may, for the first time in history, now keep any fees they collect from commodified, Disneyfied, recreation. These fees provide land managers with a major incentive to allow uses of public lands they’d never even consider were it not for the revenue generation potential of these uses. That being the case, there will be public land managers drooling at the thought of offering similar $350 a night camping experiences. Heck, perhaps they could charge much more than that--after all, the private sector can’t offer very many outdoor settings that begin to compare with the splendor of America’s National Parks and Wilderness Areas. How much is all that "splendor" really worth when measured in dollar bills? Today’s land managers most certainly intend to find out.... SCOTT. SILVER MOUNTAIN BIKERS AGAINST WILDERNESS? TWS FOR CHAINSAWS? Comments by The Wilderness Society's Jay Watson are as interesting as anything the mountain bikers have to say about recent resistance to a wilderness bill in California. While these mountain bikers don’t want land designated,as Wilderness, Watson doesn’t want it managed as Wilderness. Recently, Watson suggested that the wilderness laws could be bent a bit to allow chainsaws. "The prohibition isn’t ironclad. The USFS supervisors have the authority to grant variances in wilderness areas.” From my vantage point, the Battle for the Wilderness has degraded into a turf war being fought by competing special interests. Today’s wilderness debate all but ignores the literal truth found in Thoreau’s statement-- "In wildness is the preservation of the world." Wilderness areas are becoming wilderness in name only, while Thoreau’s words are, for many people, just a throw-away line found on wilderness fundraising letters. Wilderness needs better defenders and the media must look beyond The Wilderness Society if it wants to accurately report upon the issue of wilderness management. "Concentrated Wealth attributes the prosperity and progress of the United States to what it calls free enterprise. To it free enterprise means freedom to take, keep and control all the resources, services and opportunities it can, and charge for them the last possible cent. --Gifford Pinchot Through the magic of Fee Demo, public land managers may, for the first time in history, now keep any fees they collect from commodified, Disneyfied recreation. These fees provide land managers with a major incentive to allow uses of public lands they'd never even consider were it not for the revenue generation potential of these uses. “How much wilderness does it take to fulfill the needs of civilization? That really isn’t the key question. What counts more is whether each succeeding generation must settle for an increasingly | degraded world and know the experience of the past from books and pictures only. Must the future be satisfied with mediocrity because nothing better will be known?” -Michael Frome, Battle for the Wilderness PRIVATIZATION IN CANADA The totally out of control commercialization, privatization and motorization of Canady s parks and wildlands provides a unique window through which to pre-view the nearly identical threats to this country’s parks and wildlands. In fact, it is not simply a passive window. Looking at what is happening in Canada is viewing an Le color-enhanced, time-accelerated, nightmare. Scary, but very informative! AND because it is precisely the same nightmare that is happening in the USA, when Wild Wilderness organized a National Day of Action to end forest fees, Canadian protesters joined us---declaring the event an INTERNATIONAL Day of Action---even though "feedemo" (per se) does not exist in Canada. It’s time to recognize that the Corporate Takeover of Nature is an INTERNATIONAL phenomenon. It’s time to put what is happening to our public lands into a larger context. It’s time to understand. that the privatization of the commons is taking placé world-wide and that the issue is, in reality, nothing less than the Corporate Takeover of Everything Everywhere. If you care about America’s parks and wildlands I ask you to please pay close attention to the even more-imminent threats to Canadian parks and wildlands. Better yet .... you can help and support the efforts of our friends and neighbors to the North. Perhaps most important of all, we in the USA need to adopt a similar "Declaration of the Principles of Parks" and use that declaration to aggressively defend our own parks from the threats of commercialization, privatization, motorization and over development. There are and will be many tentptations by the guardians and supporters of wilderness areas to do those things which will bring more people to the areas and thus into the ranks of those who appreciate and defend them. In this temptation likewise is a great threat to wilderness that must be guarded against.” --Howard Zahniser, 1949 ~ PARANOIA? OR PRECOGNITION? Several years ago I met with senior USFS recreation staffers including Dick Paterson, Deputy Director of Recreation, Heritage & Wilderness Resources in Washington, DC. During that meeting | explained to Dick and other top officials exactly why I opposed the Forest Service’s embracing of free-market policies and why I was working to stop the progressive commercialization and privatization of recreational spaces on America’s public lands. Dick, and indeed everyone from the USFS, assured me that my concerns were unfounded. Less polite staffers actually suggested I was a "conspiracy kook." So as I was leaving the building, I turned specifically to Paterson and said: "Nothing would make me happier than for you to prove me wrong!" I honestly HOPED they would try. Well it appears that the Free-Market rot within the USFS Washington Office recreation department has gotten worse since that meeting. Today Paterson is suggesting that "Free Market Environmentalism" by PERC’s Terry Anderson and Don Leal “is the book to read"! (-- you will not find stronger proponents of privatizing and commercializing the public lands or more vigorous advocates for recreation user fees than these two wise-use authors!!! Unfortunately, they have George Bush’s ear and sadder still, the obsequiously sycophantic _ bureaucrats within the USFS know that to be the case.) Today the name of the game within the USFS recreation Washington Office is “publicprivate partnerships", volunteerism, user-fees, competitive outsourcing and all of the other De en tools embraced by the free-market. Under Al Gore's leadership, the game was _much the What fas changed, is today the free-marketeers have are come out of the closet. TOILETS AND THE MAROON BELLS Maroon Bells is perhaps the most stunning v view in all of Colorado and so the USES made Maroon Bells a fee-demonstration site and constructed the most outrageous toilet complex 1.6 million dollars could poss ly. 7 complex as grand as the view they hoped to sell. The problem ‘was, the toilet complex eclipsed (it oa blocked) the view and therefore was denounced broadly as not just a monumental boondoggle, but as a physical blight on the landscape. People demanded that the toilet be torn down. Now, Jou will be pleased to know that the USFS has come up with a solutionand has set as a top priority the spending of an ADDITIONAL $966,375 to make the toilet less oppressive/offensive. ~ The explanation fur this fiasco is Sanple The USES i in its quest to physical insert itself between the public and the wilderness went overboard with its toilet. Now the USES hopes». that by spending another million dollars of your more. it can extricate itself from a eee oe of its own making. For more Silver Bullets go to the web site: www.wildwilderness.org | |