Dear HCN,
What a disappointment to
see yet another foggy-headed front-page diatribe against recreation
fees on federal lands (HCN, 2/14/00: Land of the fee). Instead of
trying to shed new light on the issue and search for solutions, the
story seemed to be a mirror image of a lead story last year that
took a completely biased and unsophisticated approach to a very
important issue.
In my view as an active
recreationist and McLeod-wielding trails advocate, recreation fees
have created a new income source for on-the-ground improvements
that must be made to address environmental impacts, public health
and safety concerns.
Let’s remember: You don’t
get something for nothing. Duh.
Yet your story
whipsaws readers by complaining that recreation fees aren’t raising
enough dollars to handle the growing throngs of visitors, and then
you try to find someone to complain that they can’t afford to pay
$5 so they went somewhere else. So, let’s get the logic straight.
Fees are dumb because they’re not raising enough money, but they’re
bad because they’re walling out the public. So fees are dumb. End
of story. Shallow treatment.
If someone can’t
afford a $5 fee, I don’t think they’d own a car, or have enough
leisure time to consider visiting a park, as opposed to finding
something to eat. Let’s get real.
The true issue
here is one of neglect. Our forests, parks and BLM lands are in a
state of neglect. Yet, most states are courting tourists big-time
and the Forest Service has a major recreation marketing program
called “Visit Us!’
Well, the people are coming.
But what do they find? In Idaho, they’re going to go for a hike in
the national forest and discover that about one mile into the
backcountry, the trail flat disappears. Maybe they’ll try to follow
it a ways, and fail to find it, and get lost. If they’re
inexperienced, they’re going to spend an ugly night in the woods
and nearly freeze to death.
When I see trails
literally falling off or vanished from the grid, it makes me so
angry. I think of the CCC crews and backcountry rangers who built
those trails. A substantial public investment was made to create a
vast trail network on national forest lands. Lack of money (no
trail crews) at the ground level is causing trails to erode, get
brushed over and disappear from lack of
maintenance.
Poorly maintained campsites and
river launch/takeout sites inevitably have toilet paper strewn
about due to the lack of an outhouse.
Obviously,
recreation fees were proposed as a stop-gap measure to remedy some
of those problems. But fees will never be high enough to cover all
of the recreation expenses involved in our national parks, forests
and desert lands. That’s obvious.
So what’s the
solution? Where’s the vision in Congress? Where’s the vision in the
White House? Why didn’t the reporter inquire? How are the people in
charge going to handle this mess?
Right now,
Congress is trying to “punish” the Forest Service for the Clinton
roadless area initiative by starving the agency with ridiculously
low budgets. Recreation fee sites will survive, but anyplace that
doesn’t charge fees is going to go into further
decline.
Savvy district rangers must find ways to
do more with less. They work with volunteers to rebuild trails,
develop campsites and create boat-launch sites. They may turn some
of these areas into fee sites so they have a flow of income to
maintain the improvements. They may accept private or corporate
donations. I don’t see how they have any other
choice.
HCN’s article seems to suggest that the
solution is to bury your head in the sand and whine
mightily.
I think we need a new vision for caring
for our public lands in the 21st century. Fees will be part of the
solution, but they are not the whole solution. At this most
affluent time in our nation’s history, can’t our elected servants
devise a way to protect and preserve the places we hold dear? In my
mind, it should be a major public
priority.
Stephen
Stuebner
Boise,
Idaho
The writer is a journalist, past president of the Idaho Trails Council and author of four guidebooks on Idaho trails.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline What a foggy-headed diatribe.
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