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Our View: Parks, Forests Threatened: Dems, Repubs to Rescue

Posted on: Monday, 7 November 2005, 12:00 CST

As home to wildlife, and as refuge to harried homo sapiens, America's national parks and forests should be distinguished from the rest of the country we've so blithely despoiled.

So give federal officials and some tough-minded senators credit for the past week's efforts at fending off our ever-more-populous civilization from the lands we hold so dear.

The Forest Service has proposed restricting off-road vehicles to, of all places, roads in an attempt to preserve some of our national forests and grasslands. To placate the hordes who can't imagine a trip to the boondocks without their trailerfuls of dirt bikes or all- terrain vehicles, the snarling beasts will be allowed on certain designated trails -- but no more motorized bushwhacking.

That deprives lots of people of lots of fun -- but, as is the case with so many things so many people enjoy, there are simply too many of us, even for a nation as vast as ours.

Three decades ago, ATVs were a novelty -- appealing or repulsive, depending on how you see or hear them. Now there are 36 million -- all, it seems, convened at the very campground you, the non-ATV owner, chose for your weekend getaway.

And if you think those vehicles are from Hell, imagine their effect on our four-footed and feathered friends ...

So, say the florestas, we're going to identify the roads, trails and other stretches where ATVs might be least intrusive, on all 155 national forests and all 20 national grasslands. We'll work with the public in doing so, and that includes the off-road motorists -- but it's time to draw some lines, for the sake of hikers, horsebackers, wildlife and what's left of the vegetation.

Whether the new rules, once in place, can be effectively enforced is another matter -- but one the Forest Service should confront in its budget requests. Environmentalist suspicions of the rules already are high.

Still, coming from an agency which for decades peddled a "land of many uses" slogan for our battered woods, this is a welcome step.

So is some overdue advocacy on behalf of our national parks -- not by the National Park Service, desgraciadamente, but by some Western senators from both sides of the aisle:

Back away from your proposed guidelines that would allow more cell phones, not to mention Segway scooters and new noise, air pollution and advertising, they told park-service officials.

Wyoming Republican Craig Thomas faulted the officials for putting the wrong emphasis into rules they hoped would clarify who can do what in the parks.

The bureaucrats probably meant well: For example, their welcome to Segways, those wide-bodied electric conveyances capable of humming along a paved trail at 12 mph, came as an alternative to ATVs. So would a diesel truck -- but the last thing our parks need are hotshots on Segways running down walkers and hikers. As for cell- phone users, where're the rogue grizzly bears when you need 'em? Tennessee Republican Lamar Alexander balked at language he says raises the possibility

of more cell-phone towers and other affronts to earth, air and water.

As for ATVs, an early draft of these rules would have allowed more of them, and snowmobiles, in the parks. When it was leaked to the press, an embarrassed bunch of park-service bosses got rid of those provisions.

But the Madison Avenue chapter remains, if only for the moment: It would allow not just plaques honoring private donors, but also corporate logos lionizing corporate donors. New Mexico's Jeff Bingaman had this to say: "I've always thought of the parks as a commercial-free zone," he said. "Strikes me this is a slippery slope and a very major change."

Sen. Alexander urged the Park Service to double its 90-day public- comment period on these proposals to 180 days.

That should be time enough to give the Bush administration an earful.

And the message to the White House should be clear: Americans from both parties like our parks; mess with them at your peril.

Source: The Santa Fe New Mexican

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