All Research:
Public Lands and Outdoor Recreation
Is Bigger Better?
“If we are to protect America’s most valued lands, federal land management policies must be reformed and private conservation efforts encouraged,” says PERC researcher Holly Lippke Fretwell.
No ‘Commercialization’ of Yellowstone
Tiny microbes living in the mud-pots and geysers of Yellowstone National Park have sparked a mammoth controversy. Scientists think the genetic materials of these microbes could lead to medical breakthroughs or, at the very least, improve consumer products. In 1997, park officials signed an agreement with a corporation that had previously been prospecting the microbesContinue reading “No ‘Commercialization’ of Yellowstone”
Cataloging Parks
While there has been no lack of news coverage on the sad state of our national parks, there is still not enough money to shore up the buildings and patch the roads. To help fill the gap, two energetic entrepreneurs turned their disappointment over a canceled trip to Yosemite during the 1995 government closure intoContinue reading “Cataloging Parks”
Paying to Play: The Fee Demonstration Program
The federal government's program to raise entrance and user fees in national parks and forests is an important step in the right direction, says PERC researcher Holly Fretwell.
A Trust for Grand Staircase-Escalante
Private land trusts are proliferating around the nation as ways of preserving environmental values. So why not a federal land trust to manage the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah?
Incentives key to improving park service
Bozeman Daily Chronicle August 4, 1999 By Richard Stroup The special corner of God’s country called Yellowstone National Park is constantly in the news — and the news is often bad. We learn that there are too many visitors, too many elk, too many crumbling roads, and not enough money. On July 25 theContinue reading “Incentives key to improving park service”
Do We Get What We Pay For?
“The concern for forests today is not simply that trees will die from bugs or diseases–it is that entire forest systems are so far out of normal ecological range that virtually every element in the system is affected, and may be at risk.”
Make Forest Service Pay Its Own Way
Rocky Mountain NewsJune 7, 1998 By Terry L. Anderson The threat of budget cuts for the Forest Service is some of the best fiscal and environmental news yet out of this congress. Angered by years of declining timber sales, Western conservatives are threatening to wield the budget ax. The net result could be a breathContinue reading “Make Forest Service Pay Its Own Way”
The Price We Pay
Our nation’s federal land management agencies fail to meet any reasonable standard of fiscal responsibility, making the public foot the bill with hundreds of millions of tax dollars.