Recreation

Harnessing the Power of the Many: Is the Forest Service Effectively Using the Internet?

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Last weekend, I was recreating with family and got quizzed on a specific hazard tree removal project. Why did they leave the slash? Couldn’t they cut it up for firewood? Don’t they know how bad it looks near a major trailhead?

I certainly don’t know what the answers were, though I had ideas. Then when I got home, I noticed this essay from Bob Berwyn about another project. This is definitely worth a read, as Bob writes about his observations and questions about this project and its design. It’s true that Bob knows more than an average passerby; but it seems like we should be encouraging public interest and questions as a learning experience- even an approach to science (or conservation) education.

It’s great that people are interested in projects, but I have to wonder if in this day and age we could have some simple “how this project was designed and why” that could be linked to Google Earth.

Like the trailheads are on the Fourteeners website here. In general, the Fourteeners website tells you everything you want to know about those trails. You can also scan the trip reports to find out the latest conditions.

I wonder what it would take to start something like this for FS recreation or all lands recreation? Just think- you could find out that campgrounds and dispersed sites were full without driving around. You could find out that the roads or trail is still closed with snow. We could harness the power of the people who are out there (many, many more people than employees) simply by providing a place for them to leave comments.

The Park Service has visitor observation of trail conditions for Rocky Mountain National Park, so it is possible for feds to do such things (although it is kludgier than 14ers.com, in my view).

What if the Forest Service could harness the power of the internet to 1) tell the story of our projects, 2) keep visitors apprised of recreation conditions, and 3) to do some kinds of monitoring (OHVs off trails, regeneration, ?).

Do people have examples of forests and districts who have done some creative work in this arena? Please share.

Donations vs. Fees- Synthesis, Experiment Needed?

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Sara Gilman has this piece in High Country News on “Fees for Fourteeners.” One of the commenters suggests boxes for donations at each trailhead. I’m sure some of our readers have had experience with the donation box approach.. how has that been working?

I’m sure there is substantial literature.. perhaps a synthesis would be a good graduate student project? Seems like we have been discussing and arguing rec fees for some time now- how about trying an experiment?

People seem to generally agree that people using something should pay more than the general US taxpayer, and that what they pay should stay locally to support what they use. So we are fundamentally talking about some behavioral science around fees versus donations. We could do a cultural stratification of the country and within each culture, match some similar kinds of sites and charge fees at some and ask for donations at others and actually empirically evaluate how it works.

Here’s the Park Service page on donation boxes.

Which reminds me of an idea I had a couple of years ago. My husband and I spent the fall on various expeditions which involved dispersed camping from the Carson to the Colville (from New Mexico to NE Washington) along the Rockies. Since it was during elk season, dispersed camping was probably at its high water mark for the year. I thought if you could see the number of people camping from space, there are probably thousands or tens of thousands or more. What if we had a voluntary sticker for your car- say $60 per year – that said something like “I support the national forests.” I would buy it because it is still the best vacation deal in the country. Dispersed camping, to many of us, is better than camping in a campground.

You see families, teenagers with horses, OHVs and bikes, with grandma and grandpa-(kids in the woods), groups of hunters having their annual “spiritual retreats,” students, locals and those from far away, in total, an amazing diversity of people and interests.

How many of these people would be willing to voluntarily pay something to pay back for these experiences? Maybe we could help by making the opportunity easier and clearer (and businesses could donate coupons to give away to people who donate; or one could imagine a variety of possible partnerships..). What do you think?

PS donations of a photo of an FS donation box to post here would be greatly appreciated!

The Power of Precedence- Recreation Residences

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One fundamental principle in public lands policy that I would propose is that it is much more difficult to remove or reduce an existing use, than to never have allowed it in the first place.

At the “One Third of the Nation’s Land” Conference today at University of Colorado, the planning panel was asked to look at Chapter 13 of the report (1970) which recommended phasing out recreation residences. They did not spend any time on it as the time was taken up by other intriguing ideas, including planning and a new FS planning rule. However, the “One Third of the Nation’s Land” report did have this recommendation.

Vacation Homesites
Recommendation 95; Public lands should not hereafter be made available under lease
or permit for private residential and vacation purposes, and such existing uses should be
phased out.p 223

This recommendation was made by a bipartisan commission in 1970, and this issue is as fresh as today’s headlines..”Real Estate Debate Rages In America’s Federal Forests.” I attribute this to the power of precedence… other thoughts?

Forest Service Recreation Funding II: What Would You Do?

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Your responses to the post below on the San Gabriel and charging for some Fourteeners were intriguing, and the topic of how to fund recreation on the national forests seems worthy of more exploration.

It seems to me that water and recreation could be argued to be the two most important services that national forests provide. Yet the funding of recreation does not seem to have the vociferous, organized and powerful support that it should to ensure adequate budgets from Congress. Here’s an op-ed from the Grand Junction Sentinel yesterday that says there isn’t enough for watershed protection either; so recreation is not alone.

So here is the situation- the 14ers area is not unique- quoted from the Colorado Springs Business Journal article here:

The Forest Service says it doesn’t have the funds to minimize the effects of hikers on the environment.

On average, 4,500 people visit the basin during the summer climbing season, with a 3- to 5- percent increase each year for the past decade or so.

With heavy use, the main system trails are being degraded, climbing routes are being eroded and human waste is a major concern, Crespin said. Fecal chloroform levels in the streams are high. Also, wildlife has become accustomed to humans.

Another issue is the frequency of search-and-rescue calls to the area.

The proposal behind the new fees limits the Forest Service to spending the revenue it collects only within the fee area.

Opponents say that over-use problems need to be resolved without fees.

“There are signs the area is being over-used. But there are better ways to manage over-use than to price people out of using their own public lands, which is what I think this will do,” Kitty Benzar, president of the Western Slope No-Fee Coalition, said.

The coalition isn’t opposed to a permit system to limit the number of people in the basin at any one time; it just doesn’t want permits to cost money.

Crespin said fees would allow the Forest Service to install trash dumpsters on the South Colony access road, do ecological monitoring and continue restoration efforts. The agency has spent $1 million in the last 15 years for restoration in the affected area.

Which door would you open in this situation?

Update 5/23: In this op-ed Kitty Benzar makes a couple of interesting claims.

1. “consider that its congressionally appropriated funding has increased by 72 percent since 2000, compared to inflation of about 28 percent during that time. And no, that increase did not all go to firefighting.”

2.”The Herald’s May 18 editorial said that a fee of merely $10 or $20 won’t deter mountain climbers, but the Pike-San Isabel National Forest must disagree because that is exactly why its managers want to do it. Their primary stated reason for the fee is to reduce visitation.” Note.. this does not agree with the remarks of Paul Crespin quoted above.

Also here’s the Denver Post editorial board on the same subject.

But money for natural resource management is scarce, and we don’t see a fourteener usage fee as a great departure from the current practice of managing other federal resources, whereby fees are charged to enter national parks and campers pay to use camp sites.

Update 5/24 Here’s a broader article on the topic by Bobby Magill for the Coloradoan. As usual (IMHO), he has a clear and even- handed approach to the topic, including some thoughts by John Loomis, an economist at Colorado State University.

Place- Based Legislation: Should the Taxpayer Pay for Your Impacts?

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Sometimes the idea of users paying for what they expect from the national forests (in terms of recreation) is simply incendiary. I, frankly, don’t really understand why, since it is not so for state parks or national parks. Here is an editorial from the Durange Herald (Durango, home of the Western Slope No-Fee Coalition) that takes a more reasoned view (IMHO) concerning the idea of charging for various services when people climb certain fourteeners in Colorado.

Here’s a quote from the editorial:

There is, however, another reason serious hikers might want to consider footing some of the bill: Respect. The biggest non-tax contributors to the Forest Service budget are extractive users, who do pay extra – although, in many cases, probably not enough. With relatively low fees, recreationists could buy some clout. That is an investment worth considering.

In contrast, an article in the LA Times touches on some of the same issues (recreation impact) and suggests a solution- place based legislation- to make the San Gabriels a wilderness. Not sure exactly how this would translate into more funding to protect from recreationist damage- except that it would clearly come from the national taxpayer. Would it be simpler and more direct to simply charge the recreation users, as in the Fourteener example?

The Durango Herald editorial has an amazing quote from Kitty Benzar, president of the Western Slope No Fee Coalition in Durango, as she told The Associated Press,

“The Forest Service didn’t create the mountains, and they have no right to charge access to them

Based on this same principle the Forest Service couldn’t charge for oil and gas, or coal, or timber. LIke I said, I really don’t understand why some folks think recreation users should make the general taxpayer pay for their use of the federal lands. Can someone enlighten me?