Two time-worn sayings come to mind in relation to merchants' complaints that the National Park Service is unfairly reducing public access to popular destinations in its system. The sayings are: do not "kill the goose that lays the golden egg" nor "lose the forest for the trees".
The destinations at issue are the Cape Hatteras National Seashore in North Carolina and the Biscayne Bay National Park off the coast of Miami.
National Park Service officials are determined to avoid such sorry outcomes for Hatteras and Biscayne from commercial miscalculation. To achieve this goal, the Service is restricting certain human activities where lax enforcement has resulted in damage to especially fragile portions of the two parks' ecosystems.
Conflicts have arisen because local business people tend to view Hatteras and Biscayne foremost as sources of income and only secondarily as national park units with all of the stringent environmental protections that the law demands.
Commercial interests' self-serving priorities are those of a distinct minority. The overwhelming majority of the public, who have as much proprietary interest in the national parks as those residing adjacent to the sanctuaries, embrace the aforementioned priorities directly in reverse. It is also a values alignment that the law obligates the Park Service to follow. The Enabling Act establishing the National Park System requires that the Park Service's first order of business is to provide for enjoyment of park natural resources "in such manner and in such means that they will be left unimpaired for future generations." Recreation is important, but clearly not at the expense of unique natural resources set aside for posterity and all Americans.
With that principle in mind, the Park Service has designated roughly one-third of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore's 67 mile stretch of beach permanently closed to off-road vehicles (not to pedestrian traffic mind you) in order to protect nesting endangered birds and sea turtles. It should also be noted that only 10 percent of those visiting Hatteras even drive off-road vehicles on the Atlantic coast beach.
As for the 70,000 acre Biscayne Bay Park, the Park Service has proposed to make 10,000 acres a marine reserve off-limits to fishing in order to give a badly degraded coral reef and the fish species spawned there an opportunity to recover from excessive human activity.
Local merchants have protested that these moves damage business by closing off areas popular with fishermen, even though a depressed economy and high gas prices might well explain any recent visitor decline.
If the businesspeople were to get their way, the economic losses from the subsequent environmental degradation would eventually be greater than any suffered from access restrictions.
Undaunted, members of Congress from the two districts have dutifully rallied around a bill to overrule the Park Service and modify its decisions. Hopefully, the legislation will be blocked by environmentally sensitive federal lawmakers defending the Park Service formula that allows for the maximum recreational use without jeopardizing natural resource preservation.
The reality is that merchants operating next to national parks face a tradeoff. They benefit greatly from their proximity to a prime tourist attraction, but are most impacted economically by restrictions on park recreational use in the name of conservation. If they cannot successfully integrate such a tradeoff into their business plans, they should consider either another line of work or a different place to set up shop.
Follow Edward Flattau on Twitter: www.twitter.com/greenmorality
Official Mission of the Wildlands Project (emphasis is of D.W.):
Our Vision
We are ambitious: we live for the day when grizzlies in Chihuahua have an unbroken connection to grizzlies in Alaska; when wolf populations are restored from Mexico to the Yukon; when vast forests and flowing prairies again thrive and support their full assemblage of native plants and animals; when humans dwell with respect, harmony, and affection for the land; when we come to live no longer as conquerors but as respectful citizens in the land community
Visionary and ecologically literate. f'd Rich in the science of ecology! You nailed it.
"the day when grizzlies in Chihuahua have an unbroken connection to grizzlies in Alaska; when wolf populations are restored from Mexico to the Yukon"
Crying Wolf Documentary | Facebook
www.facebook.com/CryingWolfDoc
We were given some great proof from a wildlife biologist on how the USFWS and MTFWP ignored the existing wolf population here before the "reintroduction."
To suggest that the various merchants and service providers move somewhere else is an insult. About 99% of the businesses here on the islands are "mom and pop" shops and don't exist "next" to the Seashore but are surrounded by it. In fact, there are businesses extant that predate the establishment of the Seashore in 1952.
I don't think you'll earn your badge in ecology.
Your claim that only 10% of the visitors to the Seashore come to drive on the beach is also false. NPS has no way of tracking visitors to the Seashore to begin with. They used to have a traffic counter at the entrance to the Seashore at Whalebone Junction which is at the Southern end of Nags Head. It recorded every vehicle that passed by it including, EMS, police, NPS, the milk truck, the ice trucks, NCDOT, and a host of other persons. NPS considers anyone, including the residents of the eight villages surrounded by the Seashore to be a visitor even though many of those people will never venture to the beach. Some of these people come from families that have lived on these islands since before this nation was born.
Your claim that only 10% of the visitors to the Seashore come to drive on the beach is also false. NPS has no way of tracking visitors to the Seashore to begin with. They used to have a traffic counter at the entrance to the Seashore at Whalebone Junction which is at the Southern end of Nags Head. It recorded every vehicle that passed by it including, EMS, police, NPS, the milk truck, the ice trucks, NCDOT, and a host of other persons. NPS considers anyone, including the residents of the eight villages surrounded by the Seashore to be a visitor even though many of those people will never venture to the beach. Some of these people come from families that have lived on these islands since before this nation was born.
Plover chicks are about the size of a ping pong ball. But as mentioned before, the closures around these birds, the beaches that become inaccessible, are immense. Each chick now receives a 1000 meter buffer around them. This translates to a buffer of 2000 meters or 1.2 miles in diameter. This also equates to 776.285 acres, 751.4 football fields, or 33,815,000 square feet, per bird. It would take 31.5 of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouses to cross this buffer or 4.5 Empire State Buildings.
Ecosystems provide mankind with his natural resources, but more importantly, his only, "life-supporting services", a long list of why mankind is alive. These scientists claim, man is suicidal when he kills ecosystems, and killing off the biodiversity that creates and sustains the ecosystem, like the plover and sea turtles, is about safe for man as thermonuclear war. The me generation is selfish and clueless as to how Earth functions and cycles to create all life, and it has everything to do with sea shore ecosystems, and their strands in the web of all life or turtles and birds.
Man is the only animal on the planet so stupid as to kill his only nest. The next time you visit this ecosystem, think in terms, this is the real natural Earth, the living, physical body and face of planet Earth, man's only nest. Fewer birds and turtles, the less of a living world.
If all birds on the Earth should be extinct, just like this bird facing extinction, you would be as dead as a conscious-less piece of mold or rot. Tragically, most Americans, like you, are unconscious of why they exist, and it has everything to do with this plover, your best friend in the world, if you wish to remain alive.
Sadly, you are unconscious of why you exist in the first place, and it has everything to do with plovers remaining extanct.
There are other instances of egregious substitution of opinion and personal preference for fact in Mr. Flattau's blog. Since the fact checker didn't catch them, the general reader probably won't, either. Huffington Post, I expected better of you.
The problem is, few are literate in the science of ecology, which explains clearly how Earth functions to create and sustain all life. You wouldn't be putting up such a fuss -- if you were literate in the science of ecology.
The author of this article is an ecological literate and gets the big picture.
• uranium mining in AZ,
• oyster farming in Point Reyes, CA,
• snowmobiles in Yellowstone, MT,
• ORV on Big Cypress, FL,
• oil pipelines in NE,
• the right to gather on the 4th of July at Yorktown Victory Center, VA,
• Padre Island, Texas will now have a reduced speed limit due to the final rule at Cape Hatteras.
• Back country horseback travel in Sequoia and Kings Canyon, CA
Can you now see whats happening in your home state and all across America?
Wake up America!! Have your Congressman co sponsor Mr. Jones bill #4094 and S2372…… Ms. Feinstein (CA), Mr. Harris (MD), Mr. Rigell (VA), Mr. Cantor (VA) restoring access to Cape Hatteras......
The dots at Cape Hatteras National Seashore Recreational Area are now connected:
Eliminate the vehicles and nesting increases.
Eliminate the people and nesting increases.
Eliminate the dogs and nesting increases.
Eliminate the kites and nesting increases.
Walk only in the water and nesting increases.
Kill all the predators (animals and birds) and nesting increases.
Hey, if the weather helps us out, nesting increases.
Now charge a permit fee ($120/calendar year- $50/week) and make it inconvenient to obtain (In person only at 3 locations 50 miles apart) and complicate things more.
Those plovers and turtles came in handy, didn't they ??
Hatrasfevr
The NPS finally implemented reasonable restrictions on ORV use in 2008 and birds, turtles, and the beach have been doing great. If you want the truth rather than feverish blabber, you can see the NPS natural resource reports on the Seashore's web site.
The Seashore belongs to the people of this great country, not the tiny minority, special interest group of off-road vehicle enthusiasts or the local politicians that don't care what they have to run over--birds, turtles, everything else--in the name of joy-riding down the beach. No one needs a vehicle to enjoy the beaches of Cape Hatteras. The ability to drive on the beach is a privilege that needs to be regulated to prevent damage to the beach, birds, turtles, the landscape, and safeguard families that want to enjoy the beach.
The NPS needs to stand strong to protect the Seashore from the assaults of uncaring, self-proclaimed "beach lovers" and the misguided politicians who introduced job-killing, destructive legislation to turn Cape Hatteras back to the disgusting parking lot that it was in 2007, and will serve no purpose except to drive people away from the Outer Banks of NC.
If all the turtles and birds dieoff in this ecosystem, there goes the look and feel of the beach, the plants and trees, the look of the beach, and all ecosystems are integrated. The looming extinctions of both the sea turtles and the birds make the Earth a less living Earth and less alive and life supporting for all life, including man. Ecological illiteracy is killing all the reasons man breathes.
You mention the NPS resource reports and treat them as some sort of gospel but you clearly know nothing of the actual numbers whic, are NOT reflected in those reports.
Beach driving was regulated long before 2008 with no documented harm to the resource. I would say also that you really know nothing about our economy. If there has been anything that has killed jobs on these islands, it's been the new regulations, worse now than in 2008. We have over 500 homes in foreclosure and over 60 businesses that have gone under since these draconian restrictions went into effect. rather significant considering that between Hatteras and Ocracoke, there are only about 5000 residents. Get your facts stright.
This isn't only about you; we face this ecologically illiterate element daily.
Millions of YOUR tax dollars have been spent in meetings, scientific studies, lawsuits, Environmental Impact Studies and every other kind of roadblock imaginable against visitors to protect 6 bird nests while the bird is flourishing in other parts of the country.... The process has taken over 5 years!
When are we going to realize that we cannot change the course of nature and remove the people from office that think they can? Read about this DOI and NPS debacle at www.ncbba.org.
Have your US Representative co-sponsor Support HR # 4094 by Congressman Jones and Senate Bill2372.......Can we just have our access to Parks and NPS land restored?
Hatrasfevr
Domestic cats are an immense issue in attempting to save animal biodiversity, and domestic cats are not biodiversity; they are an introduced, unnatural, invasive killer predator. As our national parks are ecosystems and support mankind's very existence, they should not be anyone's personal playground. They are the living of all of Earth, the living, physical body and face of the Earth. Ecologically, everything interconnects,
All ecosystems are integrated, and they all have loops and feedbacks to both the climate and the atmosphere, and all ecosystems, altogether, create the life zone of the Earth, the biosphere/ecosphere --- life itself.
Playground or life itself, should not even be an issue.
• uranium mining in AZ,
• oyster farming in Point Reyes, CA,
• snowmobiles in Yellowstone, MT,
• ORV on Big Cypress, FL,
• oil pipelines in NE,
• the right to gather on the 4th of July at Yorktown Victory Center, VA,
• Padre Island, Texas will now have a reduced speed limit due to the final rule at Cape Hatteras.
• Back country horseback travel in Sequoia and Kings Canyon, CA
Can you now see whats happening in your home state and all across America?
We are making many ‘environmental’ Attorneys wealthy as they continue to sue us, the Federal Government, in the name of Conservation.
Wake up America!! Have your Congressman co sponsor HR #4094and S2372…… Ms. Feinstein (CA), Mr. Harris (MD), Mr. Rigell (VA), Mr. Cantor (VA) restoring access to Cape Hatteras........
The dots at Cape Hatteras National Seashore Recreational Area are now have people and vehicle free areas in OUR Parks.
If ecologically illiterate humans are destroying this national park/ecosystem, it needs help and protection, from humans and their introduced, transported planet killing predators, like domestic cats, which are not a strand in the web of all life, like these birds. Birds are in decline in continent on the Earth.
If all the birds on your beach were to dieoff, then there goes all the rivets holding spaceship Earth altogether, including the plant biodiversity and trees, pollinators [some birds], seed dispersal [birds], pest control for all the flowers and plants [birds] and mankind's protection from human disease pathogens that cause human pandemics. Birds hold big jobs in the eco-nomy of the Earth.
Why everyone just adores our national parks is, because they are the handiwork and art of God. And, nothing else in the human consciousness produces the joy and ecstasy of being in America the beautiful, God shed his grace on thee. Wilderness, where else would man find paradise!
Year.......Mammals destroyed or removed.........plover eggs hatched
2001.........n/a..........3
2002.........n/a..........1
2003.........n/a..........4
2004.........n/a......... 4
2005.........93...........8
2006.........38...........9
2007........333..........17
2008........721..........22
2009........464..........22
2010........593..........33
2011........263..........35
From the park service documents.
Seems a bit obvious to me what helps the few plovers that hatch
I'm at a loss to see how these stats show how preventing human access to the beaches helps...seems more like a predator issue...but I'm just looking at their numbers
From the NPS own stats
http://hamptonroads.com/2012/03/park-service-predator-management-angers-some
Birds are in decline in every continent on the Earth, and birds, unlike domestic cats, a top agent of the extinctions of the strands in the web of all life, are not. Domestic cats are not faced with eternal obliteration, and domestic cats have no jobs and play no role on any ecosystem on the Earth. Scientifically, they are classified as an introduced, invasive, killer predator, killing all the reasons you breathe and are alive.
You must realize, most of us are illiterate in the ecology of the Earth, and therein is the problem, this illiteracy is killing the Earth and man's future.