The Bush administration has
spawned more than its fair share of high profile conflicts in our
national parks, from opening Yellowstone’s gates to fleets of
snowmobiles to its approval of a creationist tract maintaining the
Grand Canyon is the product of Noah’s flood. One of the more
far-reaching changes in the appearance and operations of our parks
is now taking place well below the public’s radar.
With little fanfare, the National Park Service is proposing to
start soliciting money from both corporations and park visitors.
The plan, which could take effect as early as this December, would
convert the agency’s current passive posture of merely
accepting donations to one of pursuing vendors, concessionaires and
other interests for contributions. In return, parks would offer
something called “donor recognition.”
While “direct
personal solicitation of park visitors” is not permitted under the
new approach “unless specifically authorized,” park officials could
distribute “donor envelopes” in “informational materials” to
visitors and speak generally to tourists about the need for
contributions. In asking for money, ironically, employees would be
forbidden from portraying “Congress, the (Interior) Department or
their bureau as having failed to meet their responsibilities.”
Pushing that fig leaf aside, this plan represents a major
drive to increase corporate financial aid to our parks. To
encourage large donations, the proposal substantially liberalizes
donor recognition rules so that, for the first time, a corporation
could:
- Feature its park-related gift
or partnership in paid media advertising. This is just one step
short of ads proclaiming the ‘Official Beer of Yosemite” or
the ‘Battery Powering Old Faithful”; - Display its logo on the electronic screen and associated
printed information of computerized visitor kiosks. In other words,
all park educational materials may soon be brought to you by your
friends at Philip-Morris or the good folks at Nabisco;
and - Get permanent in-park tablets,
plaques or other commemorative installation to celebrate the gift.
While the ‘naming of features or park facilities will not be
used to recognize monetary contributions,” the naming of rooms in a
park facility is allowed, as is dedicated boards or walls within
visitor centers.
This paid
recognition is just a thinly disguised scheme to subject the public
commons to corporate branding campaigns in which companies are not
selling their product per se but are selling themselves and their
images: Wal-Mart is a caring corporation because it contributes to
parks, or Exxon-Mobil is a good neighbor because it pays for bald
eagles to have a comfy place to nest. In this brave new world,
there will be few places remaining off-limits to the Nike swoosh or
McDonald’s arches.
Interior Secretary Gale Norton
says she is excited about this plan and promises that corporate
displays will be appropriate and tasteful. This assurance is from
the person who approved a televised National Football League 2004
season kick-off extravaganza on the National Mall, featuring the
unveiling of a new soda pop (Pepsi Vanilla) and scantily clad
dancers bumping and grinding with the Capitol Dome and Lincoln
Memorial as backdrop.
To implement commercialization, the
plan transforms the park workforce from a cadre of natural resource
custodians into a sales force. The 74-page plan offers a detailed
how-to manual of fundraising methods. Managers are urged to be
creative in finding ways to ‘meet the needs of individual
donors.”
Disturbingly, the plan dramatically relaxes
ethics safeguards. For example, it repeals the ban against seeking
or accepting gifts from park concessionaires, permit-holders and
others with whom the park does business or regulates. In its place,
the Park Service substitutes non-specific criteria, such as the
gift ‘would not likely result in public controversy.”
Removing bright line prohibitions and replacing them with slippery,
‘don’t get caught” standards forces park managers to
wade into ethical swamps with no flashlight.
It is
inherently troublesome for any federal agency to simultaneously
seek funds from the very businesses that are seeking concessions
from it. In the near future, expect to see park managers caught up
in the same sort of seamy contribution scandals that today entrap
politicians.
Finally, it is just plain tacky to subject
visitors to more pitches for money. We already pay twice for
national parks, once with our taxes and again with the steadily
rising visitor fees charged at the entrance gate, but now our
national parks are angling for a third shot at the public’s
wallet.
By legalizing this official panhandling, the plan
certainly gives the National Park Service a unique opportunity.
After all, what other federal agency begs for spare change?
Jeff Ruch is a contributor to Writers on the
Range, a service of High Country News (hcn.org).
He is the executive director of PEER, Public Employees for
Environmental Ethics, in Washington, D.C.
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