Forum Index > Public Lands Stewardship > Baker and Helens should be a National Park!
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Cyclopath
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PostMon Oct 03, 2022 7:25 pm 
Bosterson wrote:
One thing to note re NP status is that both of those areas are currently accessible for free day use. I'm sure camping in the Large Marge backcountry is fun, but the Coldwater side is only 2h from Portland and there are lots of good day trips that can be done, including long 20+ mi days, with no permits or reservations required. This would presumably change with NP status.
Bosterson wrote:
So changing the area into a NP would presumably make access harder/more restricted than it currently is
When I hike on national forest land, there are always a bunch of worried people with large backpacks asking how many empty spaces are left. Never see that kind of anxiety on the national park trails. The good thing about the permit is it (almost) guarantees access once you get one.

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PostMon Oct 03, 2022 10:48 pm 
Cyclopath wrote:
When I hike on national forest land, there are always a bunch of worried people with large backpacks asking how many empty spaces are left. Never see that kind of anxiety on the national park trails.
Right, but backpacking in Mt Margaret already requires a permit. Presumably a change to NP status would create an entrance fee for any use (especially impacting day use) that currently does not exist in most of the St Helens area, including the Mt Margaret area. Like I said, I'm sure backpacking there is fun or whatever, but it's not terribly big and there's really great day hiking there and parking is free. NP status would also turn it into a destination, and scarcity creates demand. So the question is what kind of benefits the area currently doesn't have (environmental protection, etc) would we be getting for these trade offs, and is that worth it?

Go! Take a gun! And a dog! Without a leash! Chop down a tree! Start a fire! Piss wherever you want! Build a cairn! A HUGE ONE! BE A REBEL! YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE! (-bootpathguy)
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PostTue Oct 04, 2022 8:16 am 
Great ideas NacMacFeegle. But better get Mackenzie Bezos and Melinda Gates to use their fortunes to acquire all the private land necessary to make that all happen. The area just West of Rainier National Park demonstrates the failure of mankind. One of the most visited national parks in the country, next to 4 million people (soon to be 7 million people) has a bunch of private land clear cuts from the population centers right up to the national park boundary (which is an extremely narrow swath of forest there until you are already high on the alpine of the mountain). It's an absolute travesty.

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PostTue Oct 04, 2022 10:12 am 
^ The same situation exists up at Olympic. The first letter of mine ever published in WTA's old "Signpost" magazine was a rant about clearcuts visible from the interior core of Olympic National Park. Not really much to be done about that. What exists at Rainier is far better than what could have been. Had they had their way, James Hill and Frederick Weyerhauser would have sluiced the entire mountain into Puget Sound looking for gold. (Not sure what book that's in .... Carsten Lien, maybe? confused.gif ) A lot of that real estate near Rainier is privately-owned, so unless you are prepared to pony up the bucks to BUY it, it is what it is.

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PostTue Oct 04, 2022 10:47 am 
jinx's boy wrote:
“Unequaled by anything” is pretty bold.
Also very accurate. The west slope of the Olympic Peninsula is home to one of only three temperate rain forest areas on the planet, the other two being in northern Scotland and on the South Island of New Zealand. I believe, if you do some investigative work, you'll find that there is a greater degree of "biodiversity" up on the Peninsula. (More species of flora and fauna.) Rainier is home to a dozen or so glaciers as well as temperate mid-elevation rain forest, all within 65 miles of tidewater. Where else on the planet does that exist?

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PostTue Oct 04, 2022 11:11 am 
.... and just out of curiosity.... who's the one supposed to come up with the money to buy all of these privately-owned timberlands? Elon Musk? dream on, baby.

"I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each."
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altasnob
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PostTue Oct 04, 2022 11:15 am 
Like I said, someone like Bezos, Gates, or Allen's fortunes could do it they made that a priority rather than the other causes they pursue with their charities. Maybe the tribes could do it? Aren't the Muckleshoot Tribe the largest land owners in WA and own all the logging land along 410 to Rainier? Ya, the tribes might continue to log but there is at least a chance that they stop logging on these lands (although I doubt they would ever turn the land over to the government to manage). There is a movement with private land conservation agencies throughout WA where rather than holding the land in trust for perpetuity they give the land back to the tribe with ancestral claims to the land. Sometimes when they do this, they include rules on how the land can be used. But lately, they have turned the land over to the tribe with zero restrictions under the assumption the tribes will manage these lands forever not for profit, but instead for ecosystem preservation.

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PostTue Oct 04, 2022 11:20 am 
jinx'sboy wrote:
“Unequaled by anything” is pretty bold.
I agree with Ski that WA's national parks don't really have equivalents on Earth. Does Scotland or New Zealand even have any old growth forests? If so, nothing on the scale of the Olympics or Rainier, and certainly not as close to so many people.

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NacMacFeegle
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PostTue Oct 04, 2022 11:29 am 
Bosterson wrote:
So the question is what kind of benefits the area currently doesn't have (environmental protection, etc) would we be getting for these trade offs, and is that worth it?
Hence why my support for NP status is conditional on the acquisition of surrounding landscapes. If that can't be accomplished, my preference would be to simply designate most of the land within the monument as wilderness.
altasnob wrote:
Great ideas NacMacFeegle. But better get Mackenzie Bezos and Melinda Gates to use their fortunes to acquire all the private land necessary to make that all happen.
Or take a nibble out of the military budget - after all, protecting forests would sequester carbon and fight climate change, which has been identified by the military as a threat to national security. One way or another, the government can and should invest the money to acquire and restore large areas of industrial timber land. We could also start with State Forests. Now that the state is no longer required to maximize timber revenue (thanks to the recent State Supreme Court decision), they could instead manage state forests as parks and earn revenue from that instead.
altasnob wrote:
The area just West of Rainier National Park demonstrates the failure of mankind. One of the most visited national parks in the country, next to 4 million people (soon to be 7 million people) has a bunch of private land clear cuts from the population centers right up to the national park boundary (which is an extremely narrow swath of forest there until you are already high on the alpine of the mountain). It's an absolute travesty.
Yep, approaching Rainier from the West is to run a gauntlet of mauled and degraded landscapes, and those forests that haven't recently been ripped apart will be clearcut soon. Rural communities are always complaining about how they don't make enough money from tourism, but those communities are surrounded by ugly industrial timber plantations, why would tourists want to stay there?

Read my hiking related stories and more at http://illuminationsfromtheattic.blogspot.com/
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PostTue Oct 04, 2022 11:49 am 
NacMacFeegle wrote:
Or take a nibble out of the military budget - after all, protecting forests would sequester carbon and fight climate change, which has been identified by the military as a threat to national security. One way or another, the government can and should invest the money to acquire and restore large areas of industrial timber land.
Has the US, or WA State government, ever used taxpayer dollars to acquire private lands for conservation purposes? Seems it is always rich people and non-profits who buy the land as a conservation easement. Personally, I have no problem with tax dollars being used for purchasing land to conserve. But I know politically, that is not a popular idea across the board. I haven't read the book Billionaire Wilderness, but understand it criticizes private land conservation arguing that it makes places too expensive to live and takes away resource extracting jobs. Maybe if the land was converted to national park, rather than a private land conservation, the general public would be more accepting of the concept of taking private land and making it government land.

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PostTue Oct 04, 2022 11:59 am 
altasnob wrote:
Has the US, or WA State government, ever used taxpayer dollars to acquire private lands for conservation purposes? Seems it is always rich people and non-profits who buy the land as a conservation easement.
Yes…. - There is specific language in yearly legislation that I have seen; “to acquire….xxxxx for the yyy National Forest/Grassland, etc. - Also, the Land and Water Conservation Fund - LWCF - is used for this. See: https://www.nps.gov/subjects/lwcf/federalside.htm Unfortunately, this has become a football that has not functioned as envisioned, when it began in the 1960s.

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PostTue Oct 04, 2022 8:43 pm 
"The Nature Conservancy" is very quietly acquiring little bits and pieces of land, many of which were formerly privately-owned timberlands. The Ellsworth Creek Preserve is an excellent example of a parcel of land that was acquired and rehabilitated by The Nature Conservancy. No federal or state lands management agencies were involved (at least not to my knowledge.) They have been, and are currently, acquiring properties on the Olympic Peninsula. They own a surprising amount of real estate in the Clearwater-Solleks drainage. Some of these lands are managed jointly with the former private property owners, to assure that their future use is limited to agricultural activities. The Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife has been, and is still, in the process of acquiring former privately-owned lands, many of which are being rehabilitated to restore their natural ecosystems. Some of these are now jointly managed by WDFW and the former owners, to assure they will remain agricultural lands. An excellent example of that is the Davis Creek Unit near Oakville. You don't need a shotgun to kill flies. We don't need to have the federal government step in and declare every piece of forest land a National Park. Besides, it's simply not economically practicable. It's pipe-dream, Land-of-the-Lotus-Eaters stuff.

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PostTue Oct 04, 2022 11:05 pm 
altasnob wrote:
"...it criticizes private land conservation arguing that it makes places too expensive to live and takes away resource extracting jobs..."
I would posit the author didn't do their homework. The Nature Conservancy's land acquisitions I mentioned above did not (a) make the area too expensive to live in and (b) most certainly did not take away any resource extracting jobs. On the Ellsworth Unit, the Nature Conservancy has been doing selective timber harvesting since Day One. They did retain the small patch of old, uncompromised forest near the center of the unit, notwithstanding its having the potential of a high-yield, high-dollar, low-overhead-cost harvest return. Some of the Clearwater units are currently used for cattle grazing. I think one of them is a hay farm. Pretty amazing stuff what these people are doing. All on a case-by-case basis, often tailored to suit the needs of the current property owner, but ultimately being to the benefit of all. And none of it is costing the U.S. taxpayer one dime. And it doesn't matter who's in office - these people just keep rolling along with their own little program, paying absolutely no attention to which direction the political winds are blowing.

"I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each."
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PostTue Oct 04, 2022 11:12 pm 
In the case of the Davis Creek Unit I mentioned above, now administered by WDFW, the former owner of the property is still using the land to grow corn. Corn is a food crop. (This is sweet corn - not the field corn crap they grow in Nebraska.) They are feeding people. They are also providing employment in the form of agricultural jobs* in an area which is economically depressed. (Grays Harbor County.) What's not to like? Show me how you can do that with a National Forest or a National Park. I'm all ears. (* agricultural jobs: no college degree required, baby. *)

"I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each."
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PostWed Oct 05, 2022 12:39 pm 
The Davis Creek Unit exists to provide hunters access to ducks. The cornfield is part of it because you have to walk through there to go shoot ducks. The expansion effort is getting a big boost from Ducks Unlimited. The first four suggested activities on the Davis Creek Unit webpage are "waterfowl, upland bird, and big game hunting, [and] fishing."

Between every two pines is a doorway to the new world. - John Muir
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