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Show THE ZEPHYR/ AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2004 i sos ee as THE READERS RESPOND STOP FEE DEMO!!! IN RESPONSE TO "It's Time for M.A.H.B.U.!!: My heartfelt thanks to Jim Stiles and Zephyr for the outstanding and informative features by Rob Funkhouser, Scott Silver and Erica Waltz on the Fed's nationally loathed Recreational Fee Demonstration Program. I found the Zephyr's ranger cartoon cover to be simultaniously funny, enraging, and unfortunately, frighteningly accurate in a most Orwellian way. of 2000. After twenty years in the big cities of California, I became preoccupied with a Fee Demo is indeed a fast moving cancer, it's secretive origin, [implemented on a 1996 Appropriations Bill rider, at the behest of the motorized recreation industry!]; it's commercialization, privatization agenda; it's fiscal failure; all being heinous in themselves, are ample reasons to shut the program down many times over. It should come as no surprise to anyone that the Bush Administration not only suppor Fee Demo, but also that the Bush family themselves have close ties to the lovely folks at the American Recreation Coalition, “ARC, who brought this our way. But that's just one more sordid item Michael Moore left out of his entertaining movie. What really angers me about the whole Fee Demo situation, are the cowardly, dishonest, brutish and self-serving Forest Service, BLM and other land management agency supervisors and minions, who are supposed to beg public servants and protectors of our natural heritage, AND WHOSHOULD KNOW BETTER, zealously enforcing this mali t program, propping it up, and attempting to put a smiling, happy face on it, merely to bring that cash in, and thus keep their own jobs. Instead of being maliciously fee proactive, or playing the worn out part of martyrs just doing their jobs, every one of those Federal Land Agency Fee Demo Lemmings needs to TOW a backbone, because they know in their private hearts, as we do, that FEE DEMO IS WRONG! ...Wrong for public lands, and an absolute insult to hard working, law-abiding. . taxpayers everywhere. I know that I am in good company when I say there are many hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of wilderness loving people around the country today, who feel just as I do about this important issue. It has been almost seven years now since I told a USFS (Circus) ranger in southern California EXACTLY what he could do with his ‘Notice Of Non Compliance’, when. he found me and a friend blissfully camped and enjoying nature without an "Adventure Pass" | in the backcountry of Los Padres National Forest ... He promptly drew a gun on me, had me thrown in jail for twenty four hours, took me to court, where I pled not guilty, after which I never heard another word from the bastards again. No court, no fines, no el no decision, no nothing. Just a heap of smoke, hot air and intimidation. The Forest Service, the BLM and the NPS have repeated that scenario in various forms around the country over the past several years with many other brave activists, protesters, campers and even families. I learnéd a lesson that year: just because these clowns wear uniforms and make them right. Itis eeenral for liberties, and their PUBLIC lands, serving behavior from federal land to Fee Demo and George W. Bush's guns, doesn't everyone today to stand up for their beliefs, their civil and balp put an end to this corrupt, arrogant and selfmanagement agencies. And above all, heiP ee an end Presidency. Call your Congressional Rep TODAY, and demand an end to Fee Demo, and vote Bush out this Nov. I will join this club. As for where I'm coming from--I returned to my parents’ home--a ranch in southeastern Idaho, forty miles south of the Mt. Borah trailhead---in the summer detente, an actual alliance, between small farmers and ranchers and environmentalists in these parts. Mackay, Idaho, twenty miles up the valley to the north, was selected to become the site of a Holistic Land Management experimental project which would bring together all players--farmers, ranchers, fish & game, Forest Service, BLM come out with our rigs and run over your campsite?" In answer to this incendiary statement, I replied, “No, I want to begin to be a bridge, a meeting point between the farmers and ranchers and the environmentalists." The guy started to act friendly and gave us accurate directions. To me this represents one instant of détente between two alienated forces who could reasonably become allies. For today the small farmers and ranchers, and environmentalists are counterpoised across the turf facing other specters--agribusiness and corporate global markets--forces that would swallow both of them very impersonally. I haven't yet found the way to eloquently present this New Interface but I see that you are perceiving it in "It's time for M.A.H.B.U." Although the particular play of factions in southeastern Idaho is a bit different than the one you are describing in Moab, there are still many similarities. There is as yet no “amenities culture” here, like the one you describe--although this region is so remote and strikingly beautiful that such a situation could easily spring up, and many are holding their breaths. I was really glad to see your article. I'm inspired to soon write about a small goat farmer in these parts--can he get his cheese operation into swing and simultaneously develop custom markets somewhere like Sun Valley, Idaho--87 miles away, and full of healthy and wealthy environmentalists who have almost no links with the people still living out on the lande-yet who theoretically desire and have the money to buy custom products crafted by people who love to be and work on the land. Will this goat man find market-wise links . sophisticated enough to interest these very financially-able potential buyers? So far the links are missing. So far the voice heard loudly in these parts, coming out of that enclave of recreational communities, is the voice of Jon Marvel who hates every cow unequivocally in any context, time, place or circumstance, whatsoever, and has no interest in forming alliances with the people still living on the land, running and owning cattle. As far as I'm concerned, there is nothing sacrosanct about the cow itself, but it can represent a point-of-departure since it is the Past of many of these people, and since most people in this country, As for me ... I still don't have a pass to enjoy the natural world, and I never will. and environmentalists. Many of the folks in these parts still raise cattle and come out of a history of cattle people, so that animal wasn't dismissed out of hand as a potential wise land-use component. This looked very promising as a place to form, the "New Interface." However, the inistration and funding changed back in Washington DC, and the Holistic Management landsite never came to Mackay. In the summer of 2003 I attended the Owyhee Canyonlands Sierra Club Retreat. On our way out to the gathering, my friend and I stopped to ask directions of a fellow out in Jordan Valley. He retorted, “Why should I tell you--so we can even many environmentalists, still eat meat. Sincerely, Carol Lee Sowards Southwest Idaho Jim, thanks for publishing my letter. Jeffrey Pine Grand Junction, CO FINDS INACCURACIES IN FEE DEMO STORY Editor, A recent article in the Zephyr, Plan would cement public land user fees, contained several crucial errors of fact related to the Recreation Fee Demonstration program and to the construction of visitor centers in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument (GSENM). I would like to correct the inaccuracies contained in the article as they relate to the Monument. In a statement to a House Resources subcommittee in Washington, DC, Mr. Robert Funkhouser, president of the Western Slop No-Fee Coalition, based in Vermont, cited three visitor centers being constructed in GSENM, and said that one of these alone cost over $10 million. Mr. Funkhouser’s statement incorrectly tied this construction to the Fee Demo program. No Fee Demo funds have ever been used for facility or exhibit construction at GSENM. The decision to construct multiple facilities in the communities surrounding the Monument came directly out of a recommendation from the Governor’s economic development committee during the Monument’s planning process more than 5 years ago. Funding for constructing the centers was directly allocated by Congress and has no relation to the Monument’s annual operating funding, nor to the Fee Demo program. GSENM has completed the construction of three of the four visitor centers (Cannonville, Kanab, Big Water). The fourth (Escalante) is currently under construction and is expected to open to the public next summer. A smaller, unstaffed visitor contact station is slated for Glendale. The combined cost for facility and exhibit construction for all four centers and the contact station is less than $10 million. The Bureau of Land Management, which manages the Monument, is acutely aware of the need for getting the public’s money’s worth in all our programs, including the wise use of construction funds. We are also very cognizant of the appropriate uses of any fees collected under the Fee Demo legislation. Thank you for the opportunity to set the record straight. MORE THOUGHTS ON MAHBU im, I greatly appreciated what you had to say in your MAHBU essay. In one way or another, my close friends and I have been discussing the same thing for years. But you put it ina much more succinct manner as well as covering all the bases in the hypocrisy department. l hope the feedback you have received has been constructive and positive—since that is how linterpret your message. Peace, Peter Stekel Seattle, WA AND MORE MAHBU... Jim Stiles- Thank you for MAHBU forever. Please sign me up! I am not a Utahn, living in rural Dolores, Colorado....hope that won't matter too much. The issues you address are as applicable here as in Utah (and everywhere in the west really). And I so appreciate you spelling out the contradictions I have been struggling with, and so clearly! l have been struggling ever since moving to rural small town life. It became pretty clear pretty fast that the environmental dogma I held so dear for so long was crap. There is no black and white. When a mountain biking friend of mine flatly refused to admit that mountain biking has an impact on the land, literally saying "mountain bikes have no impact. It is the grazing that is the problem"... I just wanted to scream, and shake him. On the flip side, a ranching friend said essentially the same thing to me about all us damn yuppies trampling everything in sight, while he goes and dumps his trash in the nearest canyon. How easy it is for us to be so blind to our own destruction and so easy to point fingers. You nailed it Jim. Thanks! Tracy Murphy (former LDS, now Heathen) Dolores, CO Sincerely, David Hunsaker, Monument Manager Continued on next page... PAGE29 |
