Privatization

  • Predator hunters for the environment, "Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife"

    Ralph Maughan

    This is a long feature on the interest group, Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife, a group I have greatly criticized because of their anti-carnivore stance and ties to reactionary, anti-wildlife interests in the West like livestock associations. The name is misleading, some say Orwellian because Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife’s various incarnations in a handful…

  • Corrupt number 2 at Dept. of Interior trying to get out of doing time

    Ralph Maughan

    I have been reporting for some time about the corruption in the Bush Department of Interior, the major land-management department of the federal government. One of those reported was J. Steven Griles, number two in DOI under Gale Norton. He was recently convicted for has dealings with corrupt lobbying Jack Abramoff. Now he is trying…

  • The public land recreation fee has become a shakedown of the public

    Ralph Maughan

    Outdoor writer Ted Williams has weighed on the “RAT” in a Writers on the Range piece. Writers on the Range: Fees have become a public lands shakedown. By Ted Williams. A search of this blog will bring many more stories how a not very good demonstration project has become much worse as it  was made…

  • National Park Service to increase entrance fees

    Ralph Maughan

    Story in the New York Times. A big question is whether the fees will stay at the Parks, or will they be siphoned off, like the Forest Services fees, to do the bidding of industrial recreation groups who want to close minimal campgrounds and herd people into high end developments that separate them from nature.…

  • Guest opinion (Tucson Citizen): Fee-for-all on public lands

    Ralph Maughan

    More on the RAT. By Greg Lewis. Tucson Citizen. Who are the interests behind the pay-to-use-your-public-land philosophy? post 1073

  • FS Digging Its Own Grave (with the recreation tax)

    Ralph Maughan

    Wild Bill has another insightful article on the ill effects of the “RAT.” FS Digging Its Own Grave. By Bill Schneider. New West. Being from SE Idaho, I don’t get hit with the RAT as much as most folks, but recently in Arizona I really felt its sting. I wanted to explore Oak Creek Canyon.…

  • Senator Baucus Berates Recreation Fee Policy

    Ralph Maughan

    Good News! A major Western Democrat is going after the “RAT.” In my view the RAT is just another Bush Administration effort to slowly privatize the public lands. Senator Baucus Berates Recreation Fee Policy. New West. By Bill Schneider. While a number of Western Senators have spoken against the RAT, such as Idaho’s Senator Craig.…

  • The Montana stream access issue becomes a three-front war

    Ralph Maughan

    From New West. Montana stream access issue becomes a three-front war. By Dan Testa; and from the Missoulian. Legal questions surface about governor’s stream access move By Charles S. Johnson. Missoulian State Bureau Here is an earlier story on the issue from early April 1 that I posted. Update. April 18. Editorial in the Missoulian.…

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‎”At some point we must draw a line across the ground of our home and our being, drive a spear into the land and say to the bulldozers, earthmovers, government and corporations, “thus far and no further.” If we do not, we shall later feel, instead of pride, the regret of Thoreau, that good but overly-bookish man, who wrote, near the end of his life, “If I repent of anything it is likely to be my good behaviour.”

Edward Abbey

“The continued existence of wildlife and wilderness is important to the quality of life of humans.”

Jim Fowler

“Our forests offer much more than just beautiful landscapes and wildlife. Each one has a different story to tell.”

Raveena Tandon

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