Dear HCN,
The current “recreation
funding crisis’ has less to do with trail fees than with management
direction. Congress and top federal agency managers are rapidly
shifting their focus from one commercial forest “product” to
another: from timber production to industrial recreation.
The “Demonstration Recreation Fee Program” is
but a small part of a larger effort being championed by Sen. Frank
Murkowski, R-Alaska, and the American Recreation Coalition (ARC).
Murkowski is the staunchly anti-environmental chairman of the
Senate’s Natural Resources Committee. ARC is the business
consortium that is implementing this demonstration fee program in
partnership with federal agencies.
What business
does ARC, a coalition made up of motor-sports equipment
manufacturers, private campground associations, off-road user
groups, resort developers, oil companies and the Disney
corporation, have in implementing a trail fee program that affects
mainly wilderness hikers? And why do anti-wilderness associations,
such as the Blue Ribbon Coalition, support these recreation fees?
Let there be no doubt, bigger changes in outdoor recreation are
coming.
Public-lands management could easily
become a never-ending stream of public-private partnerships
because, we are told, there is no public funding available. To
avert a real crisis, Congress must restore appropriations
sufficient to maintain and protect our public lands. Failing that,
the choices are higher recreation fees, increased private intrusion
and commercialization.
Wild Wilderness maintains
an Internet site on recreation fees and the changing future of
public-land recreation. We can be found at:
http://lion.cocc.edu/wilderness/.
Scott
Silver
Bend,
Oregon
Scott Silver is
executive director of Wild
Wilderness.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline What’s really behind user fees.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
