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[Public Lands] (and waters) and Parks and Environmental Issues
VishNub
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So I’m not sure how much traction these things have in the wider population, but they're things I (and fellow outdoorsy people) are interested in. I’m big on fishing, and I can’t really help that creeping into this discussion, so much of my commentary will be slanted towards natural resource management.
I’ll start with a bit of context.
In the US a lot of land is publicly held. This land is disproportionately in the western states, where in some cases the majority of land in the state is owned by the federal government. This land is managed by a variety of agencies (BLM, Forest Service, Park Service) etc with varying degrees of public use and access permitted without prior permission.
The situation is very different in eastern states, where most land is privately held, and public access depends on negotiations with private landowners. It’s even more different from the situation in most of Europe where essentially all land is privately owned, and access almost always required getting permission from the landowner.
Public Lands Generally
This is a huge issue (negatively) for some segments of the population. The whole Cliven Bundy/Malheur occupation was more or less inspired by this. Sovereign citizen nonsense notwithstanding, they think that federal ownership of so much land is is a federal overreach and the land should devolve to the states [If someone want so argue, or at least state this position more clearly, that would be helpful.]
I think that’s nonsense -- they have access to huge amounts of land at below market value and they’re not even using most of if anyways. Moreover, very often the “real” reason they want the land to devolve to the states is so that the states can turn around and sell/lease it to private interests for the purpose of mineral/resource extraction.
A better argument against public land use, in my opinion, is that public access leads to overexploitation and misuse of public resources (like fish). In Iceland, for example, access to any river requires obtaining a permit from the landowner (or manager), and the number of permits is strictly controlled to prevent overuse. As a consequence, Iceland is one of about two places in the world (the other is Russia, actually) you can still go to catch a wild Atlantic Salmon. There are very few left in North America.
National Monument Review
A subset of public lands are designated national monuments, which are areas or point of particular historical or natural interest. These are everything from statues to houses to battlefields to fairly large swathes of land. Monuments generally don’t allow mineral development.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_National_Monuments_of_the_United_States
Earlier this year newly minted Sec. of Interior Zinke (R, Montana) ordered a review of a subset of these monuments, generally the most recent additions by Obama but also a few from W. Bush and Clinton.
Most of the discussion in recent days has focused on Bears Ears (For a summary see here).
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/24/us/bears-ears-utah-monument.html
This large monument in Utah was designated by Obama as one of his last acts in office with the support of outdoors groups as well as native tribes, which have numerous cultural sites within the monument boundaries. Against it were various local groups, arguing that the designation would preclude development and kill economic growth.
The Dept. of Interior under Trump/Zinke has proposed shrinking the site by ~90%.
Despite that, local Utah politicians were vehemently opposed to the designation and vigorously supportive of the proposed reduction.
Pebble Mine
The Pebble Mine is a proposed copper and gold mine in Alaska, in the headwaters of Bristol Bay (on public land).
The waters around Bristol Bay are the spawning grounds of some of the largest salmon populations in the world. Nearly half of the global commercial catch of sockeye salmon comes from this region.
Mines inevitably generate massive amounts of tailings containing large amounts of heavy metal waste, which cannot easily be disposed of. Usually it’s contained in vast ponds. One such pond failed a few years ago and turned the Animas river into a disaster area – the proposed mine is much bigger.
Once again, this project seemed to be dead under Obama, but with the election of Trump, it’s back from the dead.
Personally, my view on this issue, as well as the Bear’s Ears is that our best chance to win is to tie the whole thing up in court until we get a new administration.
National Parks
This is one I’m actually somewhat conflicted on. The national park system is one of the best things about this country – “America’s best idea” indeed. The idea that the best and most beautiful natural areas should be preserved for everyone forever is incredible. One of my goals in life is to visit all the National Parks.
There’s something incredible about coming out of the tunnel at Yosemite and seeing this. I get a little teary every time, honestly.
The problem, unfortunately, is that it actually looks like this.
The larger parks have a huge staff and an enormous amount of infrastructure to maintain but cost less than $30/week. Honestly, it’s an incredible deal, which is why they have gigantic numbers of visitors. Again, because it’s the park I’m most familiar with, in Yosemite it took me ninety minutes to drive from the back of the valley to the front – a distance of like four miles.
The department of interior has proposed roughly doubling the price of admission to several of the most popular parks -- Yellowstone, Yosemite, Denali, Arches, etc... It's pretty straightforward – increased price hopefully leading to increased staff and infrastructure to deal with visitors, probably decreased visitors due to cost. If the increased admissions don't go directly to the park in question, then it's total horseshoe.
I'm pretty much against the proposal -- it's a regressive fee which restricts access to our natural treasures to wealthier families, and I don't trust this administration to be honest with the accounting. I do think there's a problem though, and I don't know of a good solution.
There's a bunch of other specific issues I could write up, but I guess generally I'm thinking about
1) Is there any merit to the European pay-to-play system? Europeans, am I characterizing this wrong?
2) Thoughts on the National Parks price increase?
I’ll start with a bit of context.
In the US a lot of land is publicly held. This land is disproportionately in the western states, where in some cases the majority of land in the state is owned by the federal government. This land is managed by a variety of agencies (BLM, Forest Service, Park Service) etc with varying degrees of public use and access permitted without prior permission.
The situation is very different in eastern states, where most land is privately held, and public access depends on negotiations with private landowners. It’s even more different from the situation in most of Europe where essentially all land is privately owned, and access almost always required getting permission from the landowner.
Public Lands Generally
This is a huge issue (negatively) for some segments of the population. The whole Cliven Bundy/Malheur occupation was more or less inspired by this. Sovereign citizen nonsense notwithstanding, they think that federal ownership of so much land is is a federal overreach and the land should devolve to the states [If someone want so argue, or at least state this position more clearly, that would be helpful.]
I think that’s nonsense -- they have access to huge amounts of land at below market value and they’re not even using most of if anyways. Moreover, very often the “real” reason they want the land to devolve to the states is so that the states can turn around and sell/lease it to private interests for the purpose of mineral/resource extraction.
A better argument against public land use, in my opinion, is that public access leads to overexploitation and misuse of public resources (like fish). In Iceland, for example, access to any river requires obtaining a permit from the landowner (or manager), and the number of permits is strictly controlled to prevent overuse. As a consequence, Iceland is one of about two places in the world (the other is Russia, actually) you can still go to catch a wild Atlantic Salmon. There are very few left in North America.
National Monument Review
A subset of public lands are designated national monuments, which are areas or point of particular historical or natural interest. These are everything from statues to houses to battlefields to fairly large swathes of land. Monuments generally don’t allow mineral development.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_National_Monuments_of_the_United_States
Earlier this year newly minted Sec. of Interior Zinke (R, Montana) ordered a review of a subset of these monuments, generally the most recent additions by Obama but also a few from W. Bush and Clinton.
Most of the discussion in recent days has focused on Bears Ears (For a summary see here).
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/24/us/bears-ears-utah-monument.html
This large monument in Utah was designated by Obama as one of his last acts in office with the support of outdoors groups as well as native tribes, which have numerous cultural sites within the monument boundaries. Against it were various local groups, arguing that the designation would preclude development and kill economic growth.
Supporters of the monument, many of them Navajo, saw its creation as a victory for indigenous rights. (Bear’s Ears, named for two towering buttes, is just north of the Navajo reservation.)
But opponents, many of them descended from Mormon settlers, said it would strangle the region economically by barring future mining and drilling on its land.
It is not clear that any mining or energy companies are eager to rush into Bears Ears. A study by the left-leaning Center for American Progress found that the land did not offer especially strong prospects for mineral resources — mostly uranium — or for oil or gas.
“The area has slightly above-average resource potential, but there are no signs that it’s a big play,” said Matt Lee-Ashley, a spokesman for the center.
The Dept. of Interior under Trump/Zinke has proposed shrinking the site by ~90%.
Despite that, local Utah politicians were vehemently opposed to the designation and vigorously supportive of the proposed reduction.
Pebble Mine
The Pebble Mine is a proposed copper and gold mine in Alaska, in the headwaters of Bristol Bay (on public land).
The waters around Bristol Bay are the spawning grounds of some of the largest salmon populations in the world. Nearly half of the global commercial catch of sockeye salmon comes from this region.
Mines inevitably generate massive amounts of tailings containing large amounts of heavy metal waste, which cannot easily be disposed of. Usually it’s contained in vast ponds. One such pond failed a few years ago and turned the Animas river into a disaster area – the proposed mine is much bigger.
Once again, this project seemed to be dead under Obama, but with the election of Trump, it’s back from the dead.
Personally, my view on this issue, as well as the Bear’s Ears is that our best chance to win is to tie the whole thing up in court until we get a new administration.
National Parks
This is one I’m actually somewhat conflicted on. The national park system is one of the best things about this country – “America’s best idea” indeed. The idea that the best and most beautiful natural areas should be preserved for everyone forever is incredible. One of my goals in life is to visit all the National Parks.
There’s something incredible about coming out of the tunnel at Yosemite and seeing this. I get a little teary every time, honestly.
The problem, unfortunately, is that it actually looks like this.
The larger parks have a huge staff and an enormous amount of infrastructure to maintain but cost less than $30/week. Honestly, it’s an incredible deal, which is why they have gigantic numbers of visitors. Again, because it’s the park I’m most familiar with, in Yosemite it took me ninety minutes to drive from the back of the valley to the front – a distance of like four miles.
The department of interior has proposed roughly doubling the price of admission to several of the most popular parks -- Yellowstone, Yosemite, Denali, Arches, etc... It's pretty straightforward – increased price hopefully leading to increased staff and infrastructure to deal with visitors, probably decreased visitors due to cost. If the increased admissions don't go directly to the park in question, then it's total horseshoe.
I'm pretty much against the proposal -- it's a regressive fee which restricts access to our natural treasures to wealthier families, and I don't trust this administration to be honest with the accounting. I do think there's a problem though, and I don't know of a good solution.
There's a bunch of other specific issues I could write up, but I guess generally I'm thinking about
1) Is there any merit to the European pay-to-play system? Europeans, am I characterizing this wrong?
2) Thoughts on the National Parks price increase?
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I've visited all 3 parks in my state (Washington) at one time or another, and none were ever very crowded that I remember.
Then I visited Glacier, which was not very fun because of traffic. People trying to take RVs on the Going to the
Sun Road, not to mention all the bicyclists one had to be careful not to knock into the abyss.
Badlands was cool, and not crowded when I went. Mt. Rushmore was an obscenity, a scar on the land, and that was before I even reached the park. The surrounding area was packed with the most blatant touristy bullshit I've ever seen, and that includes the rest of South Dakota.
I think I'm okay with doubling the price of admission to popular national parks.
I'd even be open to instituting a maximum daily capacity, and a maximum number of yearly visits per person.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
Well, the former would make planning a trip very difficult, and the latter would be a huge bummer for the locals.
Rushmore is pretty gross though, just conceptually.
Expanded infrastructure would help, but also runs contrary to the whole point. I don't want a four lane freeway through the Lamar valley.
It would be scaled with income so poor people wouldn't pay much if anything at all.
Canada recently did a thing called "Canada 150" where you got a tag (for free) that allowed access to national parks at no cost.
It was great to use and the family went more than we ever have.
I said in the Canada thread I'd have paid at least $100 / yr on my taxes to have this ongoing and maybe even for provincial (state) parks too.
I guess basically I am saying that you can both reduce the hassle & cost for visitors while simultaneously increasing the resources available for people caring for these spaces.
On a side note, as an avid angler, if someone starts a big mine around Bristol I will come up there and fuck some shit up. What an insane idea.
https://www.axios.com/axios-sneak-peek-2506454912.html I don't get how the source can claim Trump just meant to remove budensome regulations when he was saying things like "What are they going to do? Once you get it out of the ground are they going to make you put it back in there?"
I'm not saying it wouldn't be difficult. There might even have to be a reservation system, like already exists with popular campsites and remote cabins on federal land.
I realize the second idea would likely be a bummer for locals, but I'm looking at it from an overall fairness perspective. I think it's more important that someone who traveled a long way for a single visit to Yosemite has a good time, rather than worrying about whether a dude from the Bay Area gets to enjoy his tenth visit of the year.
I may have forgotten to mention it, but I'd flat out ban RVs inside the parks.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
I wonder how long that can be held up in court
Shooting for three more years.
At least the counter-suit has funding from a lot of outdoors companies as well as tribal affiliates, so there's proper money involved instead of a potentially more meager effort
Canada's national parks system is 106 years old as a collective, with the first National Park being named in 1885 (Banff). The USNPS was formed in 1916, but Yellowstone was created as a park in 1870 with two more named in 1890 - basically the two systems have grown up together.
Due to geography, demographics, and development of our parks, Parks Canada has many of the same challenges that the USNPS does – that is increasing numbers of visitors as the global ‘middle’ class grows and there is more money spent on tourism by both national and international travelers.
Our parks are amazing places of natural beauty, valuable natural resources and particular habitats, and wildly popular travel destinations. Because Parks in general are so amazing they have some unique challenges:
- The tax revenues available to our places for operations are shrinking (this isn’t unique to parks, but it’s part of a larger government responsibility type conversation) – either through budget cuts or stagnation effectively Parks have less money than they ever have had before via appropriations
- Parks in general receive more visitors each and every year either for eco-tourism (unique flora and fauna), travel trade (3rd party organised tours), or just general visitation
- Climate change altering the way our places withstand the hardships of visitation, extreme weather events, invasive species etc. (but I won’t talk about this one)
In Canada’s places of natural beauty and cultural history (Indigenous and colonial) people die frequently. No really, people die and not from natural causes but traffic collisions (congestion and impatience), diving accidents in marine parks, falls, animal attacks (super rare), avalanches etc. kill visitors at a fairly regular rate. Parks staff therefore have the challenge of making places fun and exciting – that is worth visiting, safe – less dead / injured people despite having more visitors, and maintained for future generations on an ever dwindling pile of cash.
I appreciate what the USNPS is trying to do by examining their entry fees – but to me it seems like the increase is regressive and targets people that, in my opinion, most need access to our public places like National Parks. What my team at Parks Canada has focused on in order to combat the decline in revenue is: maintain a status quo entry fee (actually the same fee that was introduced 20 years ago, $3.90 / person) and focus on value added fees, specific tours, or ‘upselling’ to help bolster the revenue line while not restricting access. We also have worked on licenses with 3rd parties to operate specific parts of the visitor experience whether that be a tour bus or a boat, that, in partnership with us controls access to areas, provides revenue, and shifts responsibilities from the agency to a private entity. That in itself brings some challenges, particularly when we talk about national interest in conservation but, most tour companies recognise where their bread is buttered and I would argue are responsible with limitations outlined in agreements as it’s in their best financial interest to do so for both short, and long term benefits.
It is however worth noting that the vast majority of Canada’s park spaces are undeveloped. Banff National Park, our oldest and most visited park is something like 97% undeveloped. The tourism nodes are heavily used, even over used, but once you get off the beaten path you find almost nobody but wardens and the die hard outdoorsfolk. It’s therefore key to create nodes in areas that both provide amazing vistas for the general public and expose them to the majesty of our places, but also protect the most ecologically sensitive areas of our parks. My mandate is to protect and present nationally significant examples of Canada’s natural and cultural heritage, and foster public understanding, appreciation and enjoyment in ways that ensure their ecological and commemorative integrity for present and future generations.
I believe the USNPS has a similar mandate, and although I don’t fully agree with their approach to funding, I absolutely recognise the challenge the USNPS faces. In 2015 the USNPS had some 307 million visitors, in 2016, the centennial of the USNPS something like 330 million people visited their places, that’s a whole lot of garbage, footsteps, and exhaust fumes.
Parks Canada – 407,000km2 land holdings, 4000 employees, $500m budget, 27m visitors
USNPS – 340,000km2 land holdings, 21000 employees, $2.2bn budget, 330m visitors
I cannot fathom the task the USNPS faces to balance visitation with conservation given the challenges that I face at work.
Thanks for this perspective.
I'm curious about the safety component -- to what extent do you compromise the experience for the sake of safety? Like, if there's a path up to the top of a waterfall and someone gets themselves killed going swimming. You'd put up a no swimming sign and maybe a fence, but you're not going to put up a wall or have a ranger sitting there all day enforcing it. Or, recently there was a collapse of the rock face on El Capitan in Yosemite which killed I think two climbers. As far as I know the climbers didn't do anything wrong, just wrong place wrong time. I hope they don't restrict climbing there, it's an inherently risky thing to do and they knew that (hopefully) going in.
At what point do you have to say "shit happens," whether it's due to bad decision making or bad luck, and move on?
I think I like the idea of fee for use arrangements -- I know that in the US fishing in national parks is covered by the state permit, where in Canada there's a separate park permit required instead of (in addition to?) the provincial permit. I think that's (depending on the fee of course) entirely reasonable and consistent with the goals of the NP systems.
If you can answer this -- to what extent are the vendor contracts profit sharing (ie. the NP takes a cut off the top) or flat rate type deals (ie. the vendor buys a permit then keeps whatever profit they make)?
The idea that areas with this sort of extroardinary beauty should be Discarded so that some asshole can make a couple million and leave the land wrecked is quite frankly appalling, especially when their is money to be had in the form of eco-tourism and foraging value (seriously wild blueberries beat the shit out of any that you'd get from a store).
Also, it's galling that the republicans are so eager to discard the legacy of Teddy Roosevelt.
When it comes to the deaths in parks, it's pretty much a shit happens approach when the causes are natural. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't invest in things like road improvements to limit blind corners and poor parking spaces to limit the risk. There is also investment in things like visitor information services, weather updates and warnings, animal behaviour and tracking equipment to reduce risks to both wildlife and visitors. But things can and will happen in wild places that you cannot bubble wrap. Avalanches happen, so we invest in warning systems and break up dangerous snow formations. But other risks can be mitigated - traffic queues up when wildlife is near the road so we have traffic congestion notices and wardens to enforce safe visitor behaviour or boaters get rowdy and intoxicated so we introduce quiet hours and an after hours drinking ban.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/04/us/trump-bears-ears.html
There will be legal challenges, of course, which as near as I can tell hinge on whether the president has the power to shrink monuments declared under the antiquities act, or if only congress has that power.
Did... did he think government people were drilling for oil in there or something?
Then again, Trump probably doesn't understand nature as anything other something to build golf courses on or extract coal from.
Today, Interior Secretary Zinke was at a hearing before Congress regarding his plans to shrink public memorials, when this exchange happened:
Nate McDermott is a reporter for CNN.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=741&v=8aRdjf5IHWc
I just...I'm so sorry that we brought this goose to national prominence by electing him. (No, I never voted for him.) This sort of disgusting response to his pushes to cut these memorials embodies the callousness of this Administration.