National Park Service; Changes in Management Policies

In Asheville, on Monday January 23, more than a dozen people questioned Blue Ridge Parkway Superintendent Phil Francis about proposed policy changes that could affect the parkway, Smokies, and Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site.

“What I worry about is the use of public lands for short-term exploitation at the expense of longer term resource protection and conservation,” said Walter Burnett of Whittier.

Some critics worry the changes in the language of the policy shift the park service focus from resource protection to recreation and visitor use.

“What these management policy changes appear to do is to provide greater wiggle room for park managers to allow the kind of uses that have historically been recognized as having negative impacts on the park,” said Greg Kidd with the National Parks Conservation Association.

“Greater wiggle room” has already been provided to those who manage our National Forest apparently. Where I live, my land borders the George Washington National Forest, and hunting out of season, cutting of standing timber for fire wood, desecration of old home sites, and the illegal use of OHV’s (Off Highway Vehicles) happens seven days a week. It doesn’t matter how often that you report these abuses; nothing is ever done about it.

Can we afford to let the same things happen to our National Parks?


You can read the article that I have taken the above excerpts from here.

There is more interesting reading on the lax rules and damage being done to our National Forests here and here. Not that these lax rules are being enforced or anything!


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