Gifford Pinchot, pioneer in American forestry and
conservation, learned the hard way about political power and
influence. In his autobiography, Breaking New Ground, he recorded
going West late in the 19th century to study Western forests.
Instead, he discovered that commercial interests controlled and
exploited land and people.
Pinchot wrote: “Principalities
like the Homestake Mine in the Black Hills, the Anaconda Mine in
the Rockies, Marcus Daly’s feudal overlordship of the Bitterroot
Valley, and Miller and Lux’s vast holdings of flocks and herds and
control of grazing lands on the Pacific slope — these and others
showed their hands or their teeth.”
In one sense, I fear
little has changed. In reviewing the past year, I find corporate
influence in public policy has grown more dominant and more
blatant.
Under George W. Bush, industry people are in key
positions throughout the government, serving the corporate cause
and dismantling environmental programs and agencies.
My
primary concern is for public lands. The administration has moved
to disassemble and privatize national parks, national forests,
national wildlife refuges and the areas under the Bureau of Land
Management. We should not allow it, for public lands are the heart
and body and soul of the West. Take away the public lands from the
environs of Albuquerque, Boise, Denver, Salt Lake City and Seattle,
and they would be ordinary places. Take away the public lands and
there wouldn’t be much to the economy, either. Public lands are the
last open spaces, last wilderness, last wildlife haven. Without
public lands the West would be impoverished. And much the same can
be said for public lands in the rest of the country.
Professional leaders of the agencies, however, have been reduced to
messengers for the administration. When snowmobile manufacturers
sued the government over the Clinton-era ban on the use of their
mechanical monsters in Yellowstone National Park, the Bush
administration eliminated the ban and gave the industry what it
wanted. But in December a federal court judge upheld the ban,
reaffirming that “the National Park Service is bound by a
conservation mandate, and that mandate trumps all other
considerations.” The judge recognized that noise and air pollution
do not belong in one of the great natural sanctuaries on the
continent.
But it alarms me to read of administration
plans to “privatize” public lands and “outsource” jobs to private
contractors. Up to 70 percent of all full-time jobs, including
rangers, archaeologists, biologists, geologists, hydrologists,
firefighters and historians could be privatized, starting next
year, maybe even in 2004. Piece by piece, the parks, then the
forests, and the other public lands will be on the block contracted
out to the lowest bidders.
Putting the National Park
Service out to bid makes about as much sense as privatizing the
Marine Corps.
Meanwhile, officials claim fees for public
recreation are necessary to raise funds to protect natural
resources. They are placing the burden on local administrators to
serve as fee collectors and marketers of recreation as a commodity.
It’s a terrible idea. National parks are being reduced to popcorn
playgrounds, theme parks in the Disney mode. This is only the
beginning. Without a sharp reversal in direction, all of our public
lands, the landed heritage of the people, will be up for grabs by
moneyed America.
The government’s role in recreation
should be to support conservation, physical fitness and healthy
outdoor leisure away from a mechanized super-civilized world.
Public parks and forests at all levels enable Americans to absorb
the “feel” of nature — of plants, animals, natural features and
weather. I hope that we may safeguard these special places for the
benefit of the children of our generation and generations to
come.
Enos Mills, father of Rocky Mountain National Park,
wrote early in the last century that “Without outdoor life, all
that is best in civilization will be smothered.” I will add that we
need these sanctuaries as an antidote to the pessimism of our time.
The natural world, after all, has been a factor in the search for
happiness since humankind began. “Aggressive fighting for the right
is the noblest sport the world affords,” Theodore Roosevelt once
said. To which I will add that strong support of public lands is a
thoroughly patriotic response. I hope that 2004 will mark the age
of awakening, reversing course to reclaim the public
interest.
Michael Frome is a contributor to
Writers on the Range, a service of High Country News (hcn.org). He
is a retired professor of environmental education at Western
Washington University in Bellingham. His latest book is Greenspeak
: Fifty Years of Environmental Muckraking and
Advocacy.
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