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The Odd History of Opposition to America's National Parks

43 points by prismatic 11y ago

clumsysmurf 11y ago
"This story is, admittedly, a relic. But it’s an important one, because it encapsulates most of the arguments people continue to make against parkland. Opponents claim the land could be made more economically productive." Its a corporate effort to privatize public lands and extract wealth. Despite broad bipartisan support LWCF funding was not renewed, spearheaded by anti-conservation Congressman Rob Bishop: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2015/09/land_and_water_conservation_fund_is_out_of_budget_and_will_expire.html http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/201... "Bishop’s attack on LWCF is a part of larger effort, backed by special interests, to lock up more federal lands and sell them off for mining, drilling and other development." Related http://wilderness.org/blog/bishop-aims-gut-americas-top-parks-conservation-program-lwcf http://wilderness.org/blog/bishop-aims-gut-americas-top-park...
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- smazga 11y ago
  I'm not trying to defend Congressman Bishop here. I certainly didn't vote for him. But as a minor counterpoint to those (pretty biased) articles, it's important to understand who he represents. The Federal government owns 66% of Utah. That's a lot of land. Most of that is managed under the BLM, which is very permissive as far as public use, but every once in a while, someone scores a political hit with "we made more National Parks" by carving out a chunk of that and severely restricting access.[1] I have family that live in south/central Utah and from their point of view the only thing that changes when a monument/park is created is that local recreation is limited by people across the country who will likely never even see what they've done. "The common man being oppressed by the suits in their downtown DC ivory towers" is the general feeling. Right or wrong, it's a more complicated matter than simply trying to exploit the lands for money. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Staircase-Escalante_National_Monument https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Staircase-Escalante_Nati...
  - brwnll 11y ago
    Read the linked Wikipedia article. Not sure what you're using it to reference "severely restricting access". Under the "Controversy" section, it seems to be referring to two topics: 1. Who owns the roads within the protected area. 2. That a planned Coal mine was prevented from happening in the now protected area. Care to elaborate?
    - davidw 11y ago
      Small random point: you can take a rifle into a wilderness area. Or a horse. But not a mountain bike, to say nothing of something like an offroad motorcycle. I wouldn't want to see coal mines on land I enjoy using, and I don't ride dirt bikes, but I do love mountain biking. I can imagine other people have other recreational priorities. The US is a bit weird in how NIMBY it can get over stuff - or going overboard in how much it exploits some natural resources.
      - smazga 11y ago
        > But not a mountain bike, to say nothing of something like an offroad motorcycle. Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking. I visited my farmer family, and of course they have a bunch of 4 wheelers. We went on some expeditions to see petroglyphs and things miles into BLM land. Once the park is closed, that's no longer allowed. The locals often know the cool, secret things far off the beaten path. What annoyed my family in particular is that now they can't go enjoy those things in certain areas because someone a thousand miles away decides it should be so.
        justinator 11y ago
        <em>The locals often know the cool, secret things far off the beaten path. What annoyed my family in particular is that now they can't go enjoy those things in certain areas because someone a thousand miles away decides it should be so. </em> Actually they can, just not on the 4WD Vehicles. They can, say: walk. The Antiquities Act was originally made to protect such things. So, job done, I guess.
- erikpukinskis 11y ago
  Anyone who is against this "privatization of public lands to extract wealth" can you explain what is different about this than, say, Tesla's gigafactory or your family home, or Giant Stadium, or literally every other piece of property in the world? I don't understand how someone could be against this kind of thing and yet feel that they are entitled to their quarter acre lot just because they were able to make a deal with someone who made a deal with someone who murdered the native people who are arguably the only legitimate inheritors of the land. The conclusion I've come to is that no land deed has any moral claim, and they should all be invalidated. Other people who are open proponents of manifest destiny and acknowledge that it's essentially just a violent power struggle and you protect your land with whatever means you have... these days being in good standing with the police force and other people with weapons... That also seems like an internally consistent position. But people who think one piece of land can be owned by a person but another one can't... I just don't get it. How does that make sense in your head? Is it just a statute of limitations thing?
vezzy-fnord 11y ago
See also the odd history of national parks and eugenics: http://www.jonathanspiro.com/defending-the-master-race.html http://www.jonathanspiro.com/defending-the-master-race.html
maxerickson 11y ago
The place discussed in the article isn't a national park. The National Park Service manages 84 million acres: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Park_Service#Holdings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Park_Service#Holdings Fish and Wildlife manages 150 million acres: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Fish_and_Wildlife_Service https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Fish_and_Wildlif... The Bureau of Land Management, uh, manages 247 million different acres: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bureau_of_Land_Management https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bureau_of_Land_Management and the United States Forest Service manages yet another category of land, 193 million acres: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Forest_Service https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Forest_Service I didn't sort by size there because the USFS is organized under the USDA instead of the Department of Interior. (For scale, the United Kingdom is ~60 million acres)
- ska 11y ago
  The place discussed in the article isn't a national park. Are you making that distinction because it is managed by Fish and Wildlife as a "National Wildlife Reserve" ? That doesn't seem particularly useful. For scale, the United Kingdom is ~60 million acres How is that a relevant scale? The ratio of parkland/total area compared across countries I could see, but what relevance does the total size of the UK have?
  - maxerickson 11y ago
    People don't know what 10 million acres is. So my meaning was that each unit is managing a medium sized country worth of land, that's all. As far as the park thing, yeah, I was just pointing out that it isn't a national park. It matters a little bit, a refuge might be significantly modified to make it a better habitat and will probably have less public accommodations.
    - ska 11y ago
      Makes sense. I think the overall size isn't that interesting though, without scaling by what you are actually doing with it.
davidw 11y ago
I highly recommend a visit to Steens mountain if you ever get a chance. OTOH, I flagged this article, as it's basically about US politics.
- kbenson 11y ago
  It straddles the line for me. It's generally about politics in the US, but it can and has spurred some interesting conversation about parks and their benefits and use in a fairly non-political way. That said, most or all of that conversation was after your comment.
wahsd 11y ago
It's about resource exploitation and the opportunity to grab a piece of land that was given away far too fast and far too permanently far too long ago. I for one wish my relatives had been one of the lucky ones to grab country sized swaths of land back then so that I could sit fat and happy on undeserved and unearned lands too. But, alas, it was not to be and I really don't feel like buying it now.
jimrandomh 11y ago
There is a problem with having huge national parks that no one's mentioned. The SF Bay Area is plagued by a severe housing shortage, resulting in very very high rents. One reason is because local governments block new construction in the existing city and town areas, but there's another reason why housing is scarce, which becomes immediately apparent if you look at a map (eg https://www.google.com/maps/@37.4359471,-122.1895837,60360m/data=!3m1!1e3 https://www.google.com/maps/@37.4359471,-122.1895837,60360m/... ). The Bay area is surrounded on all sides by national parks, filling several times as much area as the actual inhabited places. These are places where people could be living, which would make housing more affordable for the entire area.
- cafebeen 11y ago
  No one's mentioned it because those aren't national parks, and the large national parks are quite far from densely populated areas like the bay area: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_parks_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_parks_of_the_...
- jonah 11y ago
  They could allow higher-density housing. People wouldn't have to commute as far as if they were building houses up in the mountains.
  - jimrandomh 11y ago
    Yes, they could, but that's a separate political battle against different politicians. Developing one of those parks would be an alternative solution.
- AndyMcConachie 11y ago
  Or people could stop expecting to live in ranch homes and move into apartments. There's plenty of land in the bay area, but bay area communities don't want residents. They want businesses because residents don't produce any taxable income for the municipality.
  - 11y ago
hannob 11y ago
In south-western Germany the first national park in that area (Baden-Württemberg) was created 2014. There was quite some resistance. Not ancient history, this was just a year ago.
iza 11y ago
This reminds me of the humorous "One-Star Reviews of National Parks" http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/08/i-cant-stop-reading-these-one-star-yelp-reviews-national-parks http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/08/i-cant-stop-r...
codingdave 11y ago
These issues are not relics of the past. This was passed this year in Utah: http://le.utah.gov/~2015/bills/static/SCR004.html http://le.utah.gov/~2015/bills/static/SCR004.html
alejohausner 11y ago
This is an interesting story, but misses a much more important aspect of the creation of national parks: the expulsion of native Americans who lived on those lands. You see, america was never an empty wilderness. It was always full of people. The idea of unspoiled nature is an idealistic dream, like the myth of Paradise. What's worse, the myth of an empty wilderness provides a convenient excuse for white settlement into Indian lands: we never had to steal the land from the Indians, because the land was empty. It wasn't empty. See a review of a relevant book:https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=4418 https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=4418

43 points by prismatic 11y ago

"This story is, admittedly, a relic. But it’s an important one, because it encapsulates most of the arguments people continue to make against parkland. Opponents claim the land could be made more economically productive." Its a corporate effort to privatize public lands and extract wealth. Despite broad bipartisan support LWCF funding was not renewed, spearheaded by anti-conservation Congressman Rob Bishop: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2015/09/land_and_water_conservation_fund_is_out_of_budget_and_will_expire.html http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/201... "Bishop’s attack on LWCF is a part of larger effort, backed by special interests, to lock up more federal lands and sell them off for mining, drilling and other development." Related http://wilderness.org/blog/bishop-aims-gut-americas-top-parks-conservation-program-lwcf http://wilderness.org/blog/bishop-aims-gut-americas-top-park...

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
smazga 11y ago
I'm not trying to defend Congressman Bishop here. I certainly didn't vote for him. But as a minor counterpoint to those (pretty biased) articles, it's important to understand who he represents. The Federal government owns 66% of Utah. That's a lot of land. Most of that is managed under the BLM, which is very permissive as far as public use, but every once in a while, someone scores a political hit with "we made more National Parks" by carving out a chunk of that and severely restricting access.[1] I have family that live in south/central Utah and from their point of view the only thing that changes when a monument/park is created is that local recreation is limited by people across the country who will likely never even see what they've done. "The common man being oppressed by the suits in their downtown DC ivory towers" is the general feeling. Right or wrong, it's a more complicated matter than simply trying to exploit the lands for money. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Staircase-Escalante_National_Monument https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Staircase-Escalante_Nati...
- brwnll 11y ago
  Read the linked Wikipedia article. Not sure what you're using it to reference "severely restricting access". Under the "Controversy" section, it seems to be referring to two topics: 1. Who owns the roads within the protected area. 2. That a planned Coal mine was prevented from happening in the now protected area. Care to elaborate?
  - davidw 11y ago
    Small random point: you can take a rifle into a wilderness area. Or a horse. But not a mountain bike, to say nothing of something like an offroad motorcycle. I wouldn't want to see coal mines on land I enjoy using, and I don't ride dirt bikes, but I do love mountain biking. I can imagine other people have other recreational priorities. The US is a bit weird in how NIMBY it can get over stuff - or going overboard in how much it exploits some natural resources.
    - smazga 11y ago
      > But not a mountain bike, to say nothing of something like an offroad motorcycle. Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking. I visited my farmer family, and of course they have a bunch of 4 wheelers. We went on some expeditions to see petroglyphs and things miles into BLM land. Once the park is closed, that's no longer allowed. The locals often know the cool, secret things far off the beaten path. What annoyed my family in particular is that now they can't go enjoy those things in certain areas because someone a thousand miles away decides it should be so.
      - justinator 11y ago
        <em>The locals often know the cool, secret things far off the beaten path. What annoyed my family in particular is that now they can't go enjoy those things in certain areas because someone a thousand miles away decides it should be so. </em> Actually they can, just not on the 4WD Vehicles. They can, say: walk. The Antiquities Act was originally made to protect such things. So, job done, I guess.
erikpukinskis 11y ago
Anyone who is against this "privatization of public lands to extract wealth" can you explain what is different about this than, say, Tesla's gigafactory or your family home, or Giant Stadium, or literally every other piece of property in the world? I don't understand how someone could be against this kind of thing and yet feel that they are entitled to their quarter acre lot just because they were able to make a deal with someone who made a deal with someone who murdered the native people who are arguably the only legitimate inheritors of the land. The conclusion I've come to is that no land deed has any moral claim, and they should all be invalidated. Other people who are open proponents of manifest destiny and acknowledge that it's essentially just a violent power struggle and you protect your land with whatever means you have... these days being in good standing with the police force and other people with weapons... That also seems like an internally consistent position. But people who think one piece of land can be owned by a person but another one can't... I just don't get it. How does that make sense in your head? Is it just a statute of limitations thing?

vezzy-fnord 11y ago

See also the odd history of national parks and eugenics: http://www.jonathanspiro.com/defending-the-master-race.html http://www.jonathanspiro.com/defending-the-master-race.html

maxerickson 11y ago

The place discussed in the article isn't a national park. The National Park Service manages 84 million acres: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Park_Service#Holdings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Park_Service#Holdings Fish and Wildlife manages 150 million acres: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Fish_and_Wildlife_Service https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Fish_and_Wildlif... The Bureau of Land Management, uh, manages 247 million different acres: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bureau_of_Land_Management https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bureau_of_Land_Management and the United States Forest Service manages yet another category of land, 193 million acres: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Forest_Service https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Forest_Service I didn't sort by size there because the USFS is organized under the USDA instead of the Department of Interior. (For scale, the United Kingdom is ~60 million acres)

ska 11y ago
The place discussed in the article isn't a national park. Are you making that distinction because it is managed by Fish and Wildlife as a "National Wildlife Reserve" ? That doesn't seem particularly useful. For scale, the United Kingdom is ~60 million acres How is that a relevant scale? The ratio of parkland/total area compared across countries I could see, but what relevance does the total size of the UK have?
- maxerickson 11y ago
  People don't know what 10 million acres is. So my meaning was that each unit is managing a medium sized country worth of land, that's all. As far as the park thing, yeah, I was just pointing out that it isn't a national park. It matters a little bit, a refuge might be significantly modified to make it a better habitat and will probably have less public accommodations.
  - ska 11y ago
    Makes sense. I think the overall size isn't that interesting though, without scaling by what you are actually doing with it.

davidw 11y ago

I highly recommend a visit to Steens mountain if you ever get a chance. OTOH, I flagged this article, as it's basically about US politics.

kbenson 11y ago
It straddles the line for me. It's generally about politics in the US, but it can and has spurred some interesting conversation about parks and their benefits and use in a fairly non-political way. That said, most or all of that conversation was after your comment.

wahsd 11y ago

It's about resource exploitation and the opportunity to grab a piece of land that was given away far too fast and far too permanently far too long ago. I for one wish my relatives had been one of the lucky ones to grab country sized swaths of land back then so that I could sit fat and happy on undeserved and unearned lands too. But, alas, it was not to be and I really don't feel like buying it now.

jimrandomh 11y ago

There is a problem with having huge national parks that no one's mentioned. The SF Bay Area is plagued by a severe housing shortage, resulting in very very high rents. One reason is because local governments block new construction in the existing city and town areas, but there's another reason why housing is scarce, which becomes immediately apparent if you look at a map (eg https://www.google.com/maps/@37.4359471,-122.1895837,60360m/data=!3m1!1e3 https://www.google.com/maps/@37.4359471,-122.1895837,60360m/... ). The Bay area is surrounded on all sides by national parks, filling several times as much area as the actual inhabited places. These are places where people could be living, which would make housing more affordable for the entire area.

cafebeen 11y ago
No one's mentioned it because those aren't national parks, and the large national parks are quite far from densely populated areas like the bay area: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_parks_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_parks_of_the_...
jonah 11y ago
They could allow higher-density housing. People wouldn't have to commute as far as if they were building houses up in the mountains.
- jimrandomh 11y ago
  Yes, they could, but that's a separate political battle against different politicians. Developing one of those parks would be an alternative solution.
AndyMcConachie 11y ago
Or people could stop expecting to live in ranch homes and move into apartments. There's plenty of land in the bay area, but bay area communities don't want residents. They want businesses because residents don't produce any taxable income for the municipality.
- 11y ago

hannob 11y ago

In south-western Germany the first national park in that area (Baden-Württemberg) was created 2014. There was quite some resistance. Not ancient history, this was just a year ago.

iza 11y ago

This reminds me of the humorous "One-Star Reviews of National Parks" http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/08/i-cant-stop-reading-these-one-star-yelp-reviews-national-parks http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/08/i-cant-stop-r...

codingdave 11y ago

These issues are not relics of the past. This was passed this year in Utah: http://le.utah.gov/~2015/bills/static/SCR004.html http://le.utah.gov/~2015/bills/static/SCR004.html

alejohausner 11y ago

This is an interesting story, but misses a much more important aspect of the creation of national parks: the expulsion of native Americans who lived on those lands. You see, america was never an empty wilderness. It was always full of people. The idea of unspoiled nature is an idealistic dream, like the myth of Paradise. What's worse, the myth of an empty wilderness provides a convenient excuse for white settlement into Indian lands: we never had to steal the land from the Indians, because the land was empty. It wasn't empty. See a review of a relevant book:https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=4418 https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=4418