The Sound of One Shoe Dropping

© 2011 Joshua Stark

Sadly, as the New York Times reports, the catastrophe hitting California's State Park System is more of a nationwide phenomenon.

To sum it up, parks around the country have had few funds, and in the past few years, even these have dried up.  In California, we are looking at closing 70 parks, and probably radically altering fees.  Closing 70 parks.  This is unprecedented, and sad.

Think about this:  What do we have to remember about the 20th Century's massive economic meltdown?  Many things, of course, but just about the only physical representations are the "C's" park units - parks whose infrastructure was designed and built by the CCC, a Depression-era attempt to put young men to work.  These park buildings are often jewels of rough-hewn timber and stone trail steps, with a unique aesthetic, beautifully integrated into the rugged park scenery.  In their day, they were beacons of hope to aspiring American visitors, and good, honest work for young men.  

What will our legacy be for this economic downturn?  According to the NY Times, "Customers... is the new buzzword", the notion that parks are selling goods and services, competing with the likes of Six Flags, WalMart, Sierra Pacific Lumber and Chevron.  Gone is the notion that visiting our most treasured natural and historical spots is an American rite and right.  Gone is the notion of "visitors".  "Customers" is the new buzzword. 

A few years back, I stood up during a National Park Service-sponsored conference on visitor use and defended the idea of visitors using parks.  Amid concerns from park staff about a sizeable reduction in visitation to parks, a well-meaning professor had made the comment that fewer boots on the ground meant fewer impacts to the resource. 

My response:  If visitors aren't using it, if Americans and other tourists aren't there to enjoy what we are trying to protect, then they will no longer care, and others will use them - they will log them, dam them, mine them, and drill them.  They will get used, just not in the same way.  We have to encourage appropriate use, to build appreciation for and a desire to protect these amazing places, by encouraging appropriate access.

Today (from the Times):  "One of the most inventive efforts is in Ohio, where the Legislature is set to approve a bill that would allow drilling for oil and gas in the shale beneath some state parks. Lawmakers say parks would directly benefit from revenues."

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As a Western American, I know our Right to Freely Move through Our Lands.  California is half-owned by the federal government, in the form of US Forest Service and BLM lands.  These lands have always been free (notwithstanding the Los Padres Nat'l. Forest fiasco), and it is as American as apple pie that they stay free to appropriate uses.  However, parks have usually had minimal fees - they require higher standards of protection and more intense management because they guard our most cherised natural and historical places.   But without funding from government, these places are pressured to increase fees to draconian levels, where they can, and pressured to close - or be opened up to extractive uses - where they cannot.  "Customers" is the new buzzword, as unAmerican as that is - limiting access to the history of how we became the freest society on Earth.

I am sure I've opined in previous posts about the sad affairs of California's State Park interpretive (educational) system - how I had to quit my best job as a park interpreter because we couldn't afford to live on a 3/4-time salary, how my park units saw one million people per year (1/3rd the visitation of Yosemite), but only had one 3/4 time interpretive position.

For a quick reminder, here is the Mission of the California State Park System: 
"To provide for the health, inspiration and education of the people of California by helping to preserve the state's extraordinary biological diversity, protecting its most valued natural and cultural resources, and creating opportunities for high-quality outdoor recreation."

Sadly, we are way past just underfunding the very mission of the park system.  We are actually closing parks.

We have met our recent economic downturn in a much different way than did our forebears some eighty years ago. 

I, for one, am ashamed.

Quick posts on federal and state politics

© 2011 Joshua Stark

Though not environmental (because he decided not to ever try to do anything about the environment any more, apparently), my comment on the President's speech is what it was last year:

I am very disappointed, just as I was with Bush, that the first words out of his mouth weren't, "we are a nation at war", followed by a good long talk about the killing and dying we demand of many of our young men and women and their families. 

So please, all of you, whether you support or oppose our military actions overseas, please take a moment to let the President know that you want him to focus on the sacrifices he orders others to make in our names.  Their blood is on all of us.

Now, a little note about Gov. Brown's proposed budget.  Of course, just like his predecessor (we can't expect our different parties to actually govern differently, can we?), he's proposed cutting millions of dollars from our State Park system, which will end up closing some parks. 

I'm still saddened by this, but at least we know that the majority of Californians didn't want to pay for it, anyway, and so voted down last year's proposition to get unlimited entry into parks by California cars for a once-per-year fee. 

It's very difficult to come to the realization that your perspective is in such a small minority.  Most Californians, and indeed most Americans, it would seem, have decided that their own, personal economy is more important.

And this from a man who was out of work (and looking) for nearly six months, the most in my entire working life.  I still voted for that proposition while unemployed (which, for those who don't know, is defined as "no job, but actively seeking work"). 

Parks get short shrift (and myopic suggestions for management)

© 2010 Joshua Stark

Here, I'd like to add a small voice in support of parks, and explain, via a couple of poor ideas I've found in the media, some real threats faced by parks.

First, this op-ed in the High Country News really irked me.  Mr. Pace makes a good point about the need for the environmental community to provide Californians with bigger ideas, but he does it by trying to shoehorn the loss of Proposition 21 into his analysis. 

I worked a short stint in California State Parks, and I worked over four years in environmental advocacy at the California state level, and believe me, Mr. Pace's characterization of California State Parks as the environmentalists "pet agency" is simply wrong, and damaging. 

First, most state parks are historical sites.  Second, the California Dept. of Parks and Recreation has had to get its budget through the general fund, while environmental groups sought fees and fines to fund other agencies with a more direct environmental bent (like CARB, DFG, air pollution control districts, etc.)  If State Parks is a pet agency, it's the runt, sucking hind teat - and Californians sadly illustrated that notion last week.
 
Then, A few days back, I came upon this Environmental Economics post on National Park visitor fees by Professor Whitehead.  It's an interesting, short question about determining the most efficient visitor fee level for the National Parks.  Unfortunately, it also perfectly illustrates a couple of common misperceptions about park visitation and management.

First, national parks are not overcrowded.  Like Mr. Pace's mistake, Prof. Whitehead taps the notion of a few, iconic parks, ignoring the vast majority of the 392 park units, and ignoring the seasonality of visitation.  But, even during their peak visitor seasons, those iconic parks are not overcrowded.  Instead, their crowds occasionally need more efficient in-park management.

The reality is that park visitation has lagged in the past decade, and managers are rightly worried about this lag. 

You see, the mission of the National Park Service is twofold:  To preserve, for future generations, those places we've found to be important to our natural and cultural history, and to provide for the recreation and enjoyment of Americans at these places.  This, plus the truth of the NPS budget (that revenues don't come from visitor fees, but from the Federal Government), means that Professor Whitehead's simple view of parks fits the mistaken perception of the public, but it does not fit the real threats to parks, nor does it fit the mission of the National Park Service.

The professor assumes that parks are overcrowded, that entrance fees = budget revenues, and that park fees are the most efficient way to manage for crowds.  All three are mistaken.

Simply put, parks need visitors who love them.  Park managers understand that they need many visitors to all have a great time.  In California, state parks have come up against this reality, and they find themselves in a vicious circle.  They can pretend that their visitor fees pay their bills, and set entrance fees to optimize their revenues from fees, but in doing so they will alienate themselves from the constituency that really pays the bills - the California resident.  In a short time, they will lose popularity in the public's view, and will therefore lose their budget.  Park advocates and managers, therefore, rightly decided to take the idea of visitation and Californians' responsibility to our cultural and ecological heritage, directly to the People.  Sadly, that vicious circle had already taken its political toll.

Using visitor entrance fees to manage for crowding in park units can exacerbate that political reality.  If fees are raised to "manage" (i.e., discourage) crowds, crowds won't come.  If crowds don't come, parks won't get high priority in budget determinations. 

Higher visitor fees are the wrong way to manage for crowds.  Sadly, many economists can only talk in visitor fees, and therefore must make some seriously constraining assumptions when trying to "help".  Also sadly, many park systems are realizing that, among their problems, the fee structure has politically alienated them. 

I wish I had a suggestion for this dire problem many park systems now face.  If you have any, bring 'em.

Hello! Hunting organizations, sign up!

© 2010 Joshua Stark

To elaborate on a passing reference I made two blogs earlier, the biggest threat to Southern California's wild lands is development, and more specifically, the development of solar thermal facilities and their subsequent energy corridors.
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In this light, Senator Feinstein has authored a bill, the California Desert Protection Act of 2010, that would set aside more land for protection. You can read a good summary of the bill here at the Senator's website.

Now, the NRA-ILA is fighting hard to maintain hunting in Mojave National Preserve, but where are they in supporting this issue? The reason I ask is because, like the Ca. Desert Protection Act of 1994, it specifically supports hunting as an activity in much of the lands it is attempting to protect.

At the very least, let's see some hunting groups signing on, because I know full-well that the NRA isn't a hunting organization.

Here's a list of supporters:

• The California Wilderness Coalition
• The Wildlands Conservancy
• The Wilderness Society
• The National Parks Conservation Association
• Friends of the River
• Campaign for America's Wilderness
• Cogentrix Energy
• Edison International (parent company of Southern California Edison)
• Friends of Big Morongo Canyon Preserve
• Friends of the Desert Mountains
• Mojave Desert Land Trust
• Desert Protective Council
• Amargosa Conservancy
• Death Valley Conservancy
• Cities of Barstow, Desert Hot Springs, Hesperia, Indio, Palm Springs, San Bernardino and Yucaipa
• Riverside County Supervisor Marion Ashley
• San Bernardino County Supervisor Neil Derry
• Imperial County Supervisor Wally Leimgruber
• Coachella Valley Association of Governments
• SummerTree Institute
• Route 66 Preservation Foundation

Show me one hunting group there...

This bill also straddles the constituent fence, as it were, by both adding wilderness land and including space for OHV use. Neither side in that battle will probably be happy in public, but the long-term effects of having the federal legislation specifically refer to both of them will help both groups.

Come on, hunters, this is something to support!

Special thanks to Defenders of Wildlife for bringing this to my attention.

If only they'd called first...

© 2010 Joshua Stark

Last week, my good cousin Kevin shot me an email from the NRA-ILA on yet another attempt by those anti-hunting, lawyering, pinko enviros to take away my right to bear arms...
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or, to put it another way-

Last week, my good cousin Kevin sent me an email from the whack nut-job NRA about something or other that they hoped would rile their base enough to help them keep their vice-like neocon death-grip power-hold on Washington, D.C....

or, (and this is the reason, I swear, I'm not a popular site on the internet)-

Last week, my good cousin Kevin sent me an email alert from the NRA (no need to explain who they are) about a request by the Center for Biological Diversity and a few other environmental and conservation groups. This "Request for Rule Change", sent to the California Fish & Game Commission, concerns management within the Mojave National Preserve, specifically to limit hunting.

Reading the original NRA-ILA bulletin, one is forced to pick a side, which always bothers me about email alerts of any kind. I understand that, in advocacy, the job is to rile folks, but it also has the effect of creating too polarized a conversation.

So I looked up the CBD request. Sadly, neither the NRA nor the CBD thought the public intelligent enough to understand the issue without their interpretation, and it took some digging before I could find it. Some folks think we should read the primary source material for ourselves, and a hearty thanks goes out to the folks at CalGunLaws.com for the copy you can read here.

Second, after some conversations, I also read the Mojave National Preserve's General Management Plan, which is the guiding document for managing the Preserve. Last, I perused the Desert Tortoise Recovery Plan, searching for references to hunting.

Here's the issue: The Center for Biological Diversity is requesting that the California Fish & Game Commission change the rules for hunting within the Preserve. They want to: restrict hunting to Sept. 1st-Jan. 31st (except for bighorn); end rabbit, hare, and nongame animal hunting; and disallow the use of dogs and spotlights. The reason they are asking for these rule changes on these 1.5 million acres of wildlands is to protect the desert tortoise, a species listed under the Endangered Species Act.

As I read the CBD's request, I grew more and more frustrated. If ever there were a document that could be used to split the hunting community from the environmental community, exploiting an already frustrating and unnatural rift for political purposes, this would be the one. Yet, when I read it, I knew that it didn't come from a group of anti-hunting, New World Order totalitarians. It comes from a group of people who want to protect the desert tortoise, and who do not hunt, nor understand the traditions that arise from hunting, nor the regulatory manners involved in California hunting.

So, if the folks at CBD had called or emailed me (please do!) to ask my honest opinion about their request, here is what I would have said:
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Ideally, you should have local hunters among your ranks, and you need to talk to them to understand what they hunt, when, where, and why. Obviously, looking at the request, you do not have this, nor have you solicited input from independent, local hunters about their habits, places, and the like. Okay then, next step.

The next step would be starting from California hunting regulations. It is common practice for the state to manage its preserves by season, opening up hunting for multiple species on a particular refuge, but only during the season for one type. It is also common for the State to restrict access to certain parts of a refuge to protect particular species, while allowing hunting in other parts of the refuge.

Looking at the identified critical habitat for desert tortoises, I see that about 800,000 acres has been identified within the Preserve. That should be your start, because if you just take the Preserve's border, without connecting it in some way to tortoise habitat or hunting habits, then you alienate people due to this arbitrary boundary. Hunters are land-oriented; they think spatially, geographically. They also think in terms of habitat. So, telling them that a particular habitat and spot is off-limits may be unpopular, but it is understood, especially when it comes with real reasons. In fact, if you knew the hunting hot-spots for rabbits, hares, and nongame animals, then you could possibly have avoided this fight to begin with, or at least shown hunters that you really are trying to consider their activities and the real impacts on desert tortoises.

One thing you should avoid like the plague is allowing wealthier hunting opportunities, and even making exceptions for them, while banning hunting for poorer folks. Bighorn sheep is a very limited hunt, and the people who hunt them often spend many thousands of dollars to bag a trophy. Rabbit hunters, on the other hand, are typically poorer, and often times rabbit can provide a valuable, nutritious supplement. You definitely should not ask for an exception.

I understand that there is a problem with carcasses left from people shooting ground squirrels, coyotes, and hares, and those carcasses unnaturally feeding tortoise predators. Again, though, this problem is more easily solved by restricting hunting within tortoise habitat during the time of year they need. I don't hunt nongame animals, but I'm fairly certain that removing predation from a mid-level predator, making it the apex predator in a region, can have dramatic and unintended consequences. Now, if coyote hunting isn't so intensive as to impact them in this dramatic a manner, then is it really impacting tortoises?

I would definitely reconsider disallowing the use of dogs. Instead, I would have an educational campaign about the proper use of hunting dogs, and their environmental benefits. Dogs find downed game, and have a tremendous impact on decreasing the number of carcasses in a field. Unruly dogs in tortoise habitat can wreak havoc, so restrict hunting within tortoise habitat, not within the entire Preserve.

I have a sneaking suspicion that the largest threats to desert tortoises are climate change and development (including development that is an attempt to help cure climate change, ironically). I don't seriously believe that the impact from hunting is so large as to severely inhibit tortoise recovery, especially in the 700,000 acres not designated as tortoise habitat within the Preserve.

Ultimately, you have two good documents concerning both the management of tortoises and the management of the Preserve, (the Recovery Plan and General Management Plan, respectively) - use those! The first suggests restricting hunting that leaves carcasses, and restricting hunting to a season. The second suggests restricting hunting to a season, but not by type. CBD can do two great things with this: Talk to local hunters, to minimize the impact to hunting while maximizing long-term desert and tortoise protections when determining which locales and times to restrict; and encourage folks to eat jackrabbits (which are hares and very popular in Europe), to cut down on carcasses left in the field.

As for the rule change request, CBD should request that hunting within designated critical tortoise habitat be restricted by season, that season being the quail season (usually the end of January). This is both scientifically sound, and within the scope of everybody's capabilities. However, since I am not a local hunter, I am painting a broad picture that could be further refined by local experience, which would have the added bonus of local support (or at least understanding).
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Those would have been my points. Instead, CBD has taken the recommendation by the Fish & Wildlife Service in its Recovery Plan and tried to apply it to a set of boundaries with no bearing on tortoise habitat, while exempting wealthy desert bighorn hunters from the restrictions. In doing so, CBD has ignored the purpose of recommendations from the Recovery Plan, the Preserve's own General Management Plan, and California hunting tradition and hunters.

I'll admit that I am a fan of the Center for Biological Diversity, and for the Endangered Species Act and the National Park Service. The spirit that drives the folks at CBD emerged from hunters' hearts generations ago, as did parks and a desire to protect those species we see in the wild. As a hunter, I cannot deny my own impacts, or worse yet, only pretend to see my positive impacts while denying I also have negative ones. And, just as I try to walk more and more quietly and lightly upon the land when I hunt if I am to be successful, I must maturely understand my place and responsibility to wild things, too.

Hunting is different from all other outdoors activities in that it is an inclusive experience, it lets me be a part of the wild, to participate in the wild, rather than merely observe it or ride it like a roller-coaster. Hunters will do well to remember that this wild we seek and experience and love includes so much more than our prey and the burger joint on the way home. It includes and requires desert tortoises, and bighorns, all of it, and where we see that our impacts have a negative effect, where we see our impacts are wrong, we must responsibly change.

So one more time, please CBD, reconsider this rule change in light of the Desert Tortoise Recovery Plan, the Mojave General Management Plan, the history and traditions of California hunting and hunting laws, and for hunters like me, who see that our communities should not be split at all, but who are split over politics, so that we may both be used as pawns in others' games.