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Starving National Park System Needs Fatter Budget
WASHINGTON, DC, February 25, 2002 (ENS) - Nearly all of Mount Rainier
National Park is designated or managed as wilderness, but only 10 percent
of its budget is spent protecting park resources. Although the park in
Washington state is inhabited by endangered spotted owls and bull trout,
its budget is too small to permit monitoring of these species. Similar
needs exist on all of the 384 areas in the national park system.
The National Park Service is an agency on a starvation diet, warns a new
coalition of people who care about the future of America's national parks -
individuals and 150 private businesses, trade associations, and nonprofit
organizations from across the country.
Calling itself Americans for National Parks, the coalition was formed as an
initiative of the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA), a
nonprofit group of over 425,000 members based in Washington, DC.
The coalition's activities are intended as an intensive, multi-year
endeavor to secure full funding for America's parks on a consistent basis.
 Ranier National Park(Photo by
Dale Anderson Honorable Mention 2002 National Parks Photo Contest courtesy
NPS)
At a conference this week in Washington, and through a petition and email
campaign, Americans for National Parks is calling for a $280 million
increase in the National Park
Service (NPS) fiscal year 2003 operating budget.
Over 250 million visitors annually, pollution, motorized use, and
development have posed problems beyond the Park Service's ability to solve
within its current budget, the coalition says, putting the parks at risk.
Plant and wildlife species are disappearing on the 83.6 million acres under
the National Park Service jurisdiction. Education programs are being cut.
Irreplaceable historic structures and museum artifacts are crumbling, the
coalition says.
Although the 2003 Park Service budget request President George W. Bush sent
to Congress is $2.356 billion, a net increase of $31.5 million or 1.4
percent above the FY 2002 enacted level, Americans for National Parks says
this level of funding would still fall far short of what the parks really
require.
As part of the Americans for National Parks conference in Washington, more
than 18,000 petitions signed by Americans from across the country will be
presented to President Bush, asking him to provide the national parks with
the additional funding.
 National Park Service Director Fran
Mainella is the first woman to hold this postion. She comes to the job from
a parallel position in Florida.(Photo courtesy )
Participants will hear about the problems and about "winning strategies
that integrate communications, grassroots, the legislative process, and
public education strategies," conference organizers say.
Conference participants are invited to a reception on Capitol Hill with
members of Congress and their staff on Monday and the next day will be able
to lobby Senators and Representatives during prescheduled meetings.
For supporters of national parks who are not able to attend the conference,
the NPCA has a website where people can send email to lawmakers at http://www.npca.org.
The NPCA takes credit for persuading presidential candidate George W. Bush
to pledge to include an additional $4.9 billion over five years in the
federal budget for the underfunded National Park System. The announcement
in September 2000 was the first major environmental pledge of Bush?s
presidential campaign.
But the additional $31.5 million for parks in President Bush's 2003 budget
proposal does not begin to meet this promise, the NPCA says.
 Arches National Park(Photo by Keni Lee
winner 2002 National Park Service Photo Contest courtesy NPS)
By Park Service estimates, the backlog of maintenance needs alone exceeds
$4 billion. The amount of money needed to assess the status of imperiled
wildlife, plants, archaeological treasures or other artifacts is less
clear, says the NPCA.
A new way of engaging private citizens in funding the National Park Service
budget for 2003 is a Bush administration creation called the Cooperative
Conservation Initiative. The proposed budget earmarks $100 million for the
National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, and U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service to partner with citizens, land user groups, environmental
organizations, communities, local and state governments, and industries for
conservation projects. Partnering organizations or individuals would be
expected to match federal funds on at least a 50/50 basis.
The Americans for National Parks campaign grew out of NPCA's partnership
with the Park Service which produced the Business Plan Initiative. Under
this plan individual parks can, for the first time, take a comprehensive
look at their obligations and needs and distill the information into a
budget and management plan.
In the same businesslike manner, the full funding campaign is focused on a
set of interim, 18 month goals, the first of which is to build public
demand for park protection through media relations, advertising, and
grassroots education.
In pursuing its goal of adequate funding for national parks, the coalition
"supports the rigorous application of sound business and management
principles in each national park as developed jointly by the NPCA and the
Park Service."
To get involved in taking action to fully fund the needs of America's
National Parks, log on to: http://www.npca.org/take_action/flash.html
To read about President Bush's original campaign pledge of $4.9 billion for
national parks see the ENS story, Bush
Pledges Billions for National Parks.
To see a detailed analysis of the FY2003 budget request for National Park
Service funding, visit: http://165.83.219.72/release/Detail.cfm?ID=225, and http://165.83.219.72/budget2/index.cfm
Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2002. All rights reserved.
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