By
Jessica Lee
They have already ripped us off at Mt. Lemmon. Now get ready to hand over another $5 bill to go to Sabino Canyon.
Starting in February, it is going to cost an additional $5 per day or $20 annually to park at Sabino Canyon, as the area is added to the existing Catalina Mountains Pass Program. The program already applies to Mt. Lemmon.
This program is not local, but rather part of a much more perfidious and extensive scheme- a nationwide Demonstration Recreation Fee Program applied within certain U.S. Forest Service lands. This experimental program sneaked through Congress as a rider when they approved a fiscal year 1997 appropriation bill, thus allowing no debate or public input.
The plan was masterminded by the American Recreation Coalition (ARC), a tight circle of about 200 recreation industry businesses who successfully convinced the Forest Service to sample their plan. Together, their grandiose goal is the partial privatization and development of our public lands for no other reason than maximum profit.
In other words, their hidden agenda is to implement a program to force the American people to pay more to visit our national forests, but instead of increasing preservation, it will promote the private sector.
Designed to help participating agencies, the program raises and retains revenues at their particular recreation site for on-the-ground improvements. This sounds like a good idea, right? After all, the Forest Service only gets a tiny chunk of the federal budget-a mere $.00018 from each federal tax dollar goes to fund the preservation of wilderness and heritage resources, as well as recreation. And that amount is spread across the 156 national forests nationwide.
Places such as Mt. Lemmon and Sabino Canyon do need the extra money to repair their deteriorating facilities and help preserve the human-invaded landscape. The Forest Service has watched Congress slowly deplete its budget over the years. This has led to the scheme developed by the Forest Service and the ARC to create a false facilities crisis, setting the stage for private corporations to come to the rescue.
Yet the Forest Service reports that only 22 percent of the total amount collected under the program is actually used for repairs and facility maintenance. The main concern with the fee demo program is that only 2 percent of the total amount raised goes towards resource protection; within the Mt. Lemmon project, out of the $360,000 that was collected over a year, only $14,000 was used to protect habitat. Fifty-two percent of the money collected falls into the category of what the Forest Service refers to as "annual operation and costs of collection."
These are expenditures that we cannot explain. While their goal is to increase the number of visitors, the budget to protect the environment is less.
Now before you dig into your wallet and comply with this fee, let's take a closer look into this conspiracy. Since the time of Teddy Roosevelt and John Muir, outdoor recreation has become one of the most popular pastimes in the United States. Nearly $100 billion is invested each year by Americans and foreigners to recreate on our public lands.
Now, some of the largest businesses within the American Recreation Coalition have made a deal with the Forest Service to take advantage of nature lovers. Corporations such as Exxon, Disney, Chevron, Harley-Davidson and L.L. Bean have decided that they can profit by marketing our national lands to the people who own the land-Americans.
Remember that catchy phrase on those dirt road signs that say the national forests are "your land?" Well, it's a hoax. James R. Lyons, the undersecretary for natural resources and environment within the U.S. Department of Agriculture, decided that they needed to take a more "businesslike approach" to managing and promoting these lands. In fact, he said, "We have developed a marketing strategy and an icon that we hope will become to outdoor recreation what the Nike swoosh is to sporting goods and that famous Mercedes Benz hood ornament is to automobiles-a sign that connotes high quality outdoor experience and customer satisfaction."
Say what?! We are now being treated as customers to our own public lands? The wilderness is now a recreational product? Lyons admitted turning to groups such as the ARC and others within the private sector "to provide more support for national forest recreation."
Paying $5 a day and federal taxes to experience pristine nature is a high price to pay. Didn't we fight the American revolution to get rid of double taxation? It is especially not fair that mining companies are only charged up to $5 an acre, and ranchers just over a dollar per head of cattle per month to use the land for grazing? Then, the government ends up spending more money to subsidize those groups anyway.
And what happens if you want to purchase one of those passes to enter the Catalina Mountains? Don't worry. According to the Coronado National Forest Service, local businesses such as the Summit Hut, 12 Texaco Star Marts, Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Loews Ventana Canyon Resort and Pima Community College all buy the tickets in bulk, then re-sell them to us at a higher price.
Now local companies are also benefiting from the sale of the public lands around Tucson. Is it surprising that the UA Bookstore used to be on this list?
The Catch 22 of this entire deal is that there is no way to vote against this experimental project. Every time you pay a demo fee when going to Mt. Lemmon (and starting this Thursday at Sabino Canyon), they consider it a vote in support of the program.
Don't want to pay? Too bad. If you tell the collector that you choose not to support the program, they tag you with a ticket of noncompliance, which entails a penalty ranging from $30-$100. The big businesses have trapped us outdoorsmen in a very undemocratic and expensive corner.
Soon, the Forest Service will be asking Congress to make the program permanent.
If no action is taken, we will watch the Disneyfication of our most natural and exotic public lands. . . the rise of four-star hotels, restaurants, theme parks, golf courses and paved, guided trails that will border the wilderness.
It is more than college students not being able to afford an afternoon in the mountains. We are running the risk of losing our simple civil freedoms.
