The man in charge of the National Parks has his friggin' hat on backwards!

[LesPalenik]

Being someone who can't really go on without wilderness I'm disgusted with Zinke. I just returned from being out for 5 nights hiking 9-10 miles a day.  It was wonderful not having internet or a phone. 
What is really hard is seeing the low morale in many Park Service Employees.  I can't blame em.  Jeff you might want to check out  https://www.facebook.com/AltUSNationalParkService/ 

Can you imagine what Ansel would have thought about the new administration?

That's a good and important point. Having a moron in charge of any organization is very demotivating. Tremendous (and often irreparable) damages can be inflicted that way.

[Schewe]

Jeff you might want to check out  https://www.facebook.com/AltUSNationalParkService/ 

Can you imagine what Ansel would have thought about the new administration?

Yep...I remember that the new National Parks admin tried to find out who was posting on AltParks but couldn't figure it out...

And yes, Ansel would have been pissed...as I am. I really feel bad for the long time park employees because of the lack of respect being show like this debacle with the head of Yellowstone (who DID wear is hat correctly and proudly).

Yellowstone chief Dan Wenk says he feels he's "no longer wanted" after spat with Trump administration


(note the hat correctly worn)

BILLINGS, Mont. -- Yellowstone National Park's superintendent said Thursday that he's being forced out in an apparent "punitive action" and feels like he's "no longer wanted." This comes after disagreements with the Trump administration over how many bison the park can sustain, a longstanding source of conflict between park officials and ranchers in neighboring Montana.

Superintendent Dan Wenk announced last week that he intended to retire March 30, 2019, after being offered a transfer he didn't want. He said he was informed this week by National Park Service Acting Director Paul "Dan" Smith that a new superintendent will be in place in August and that Wenk will be gone by then.

"I feel this is a punitive action, but I don't know for sure. They never gave me a reason why," Wenk said. The only dispute he's had with U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, who oversees the park service, was whether the park has too many bison, Wenk said.

"I'm feeling like I devoted 43 years of my life, I think I have a record of achievement with the National Park Service that at the end of the day doesn't matter and that I'm no longer wanted at Yellowstone National Park," he told Yellowstone Public Radio.

BTW, Zinke is also one of the guys who like EPA head Pruitt with questionable practices like:

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke's $12K charter flight approved without full info

A $12,000 charter flight by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke was reviewed and approved by department ethics officials without complete information, because staffers who helped schedule the trip did not provide sufficient details, an internal watchdog said Monday.

A report by Interior's inspector general said Zinke's use of a chartered flight after he spoke to a National Hockey League team in Las Vegas "might have been avoided" if Interior employees had worked with the team to accommodate Zinke's schedule.

Wait, what was the Interior Department head doing in Vegas talking to a NHL team in the first place?

Well, he sure has learned ethics from his boss, huh?

And this was the nut job that Trump told to figure out what national parks Trump should reduce in size or eliminate...

Yeah, Ansel would be pissed...

[Robert Roaldi]

WTF us wrong with the USA? I get it that people have differing opinions about how things should be run, and I almost get it that people have become really rude about their opinions, since our current culture tends to reward loudmouths. But why would anyone want to decrease the size of the National Parks? What is wrong with National Parks? Is it really just because environmentalists like National Parks, therefore we have to come out against National Parks, because we like pissing off lefties. Is that really it? Are people that stupid?

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Any proof that someone wants to decrease the size of National Parks?

[LesPalenik]

Googling for "Trump national parks reduction" yielded 2,200,000 million hits.
The first one by National Geographic is shown below. National monuments are not exactly like national parks, but it is a shame anyway.

President Trump's December decision to scale back two national monuments in Utah took effect on February 2. Bears Ears National Monument has been reduced to 16 percent, and Grand Staircase-Escalante to a little over half of its original size.

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/12/trump-shrinks-bears-ears-grand-staircase-escalante-national-monuments/

and here is another link, this time specifically about National Parks

Cabins in disrepair, rusting pipelines, crumbling trails. These are some of the attributes that currently define national parks, which are in a state of crisis. Long have their problems been swept under the rug, but now President Trump plans to make matters worse, putting these parks, their wildlife, and their workers on the chopping block.

https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/national-parks-are-dying-as-trump-swings-the-axe/

[Schewe]

Any proof that someone wants to decrease the size of National Parks?

Did you miss it? It’s already happened to Bears Ear and Escalante in Utah and a possible reduction in several others.

Trump shrinks Bears Ears, Grand Staircase-Escalante monuments in historic proclamations

WASHINGTON — President Trump signed two proclamations Monday that shrink federally protected lands in Utah by about 2 million acres — the largest rollback of national monument designations in history.

Trump's decision to scale back the size of those monuments marks the most aggressive presidential effort to roll back national monument protections in U.S. history. In addition to shrinking the size of the two monuments, Trump also lifted restrictions on motorized vehicles and livestock grazing even within the smaller boundaries.

Already the vultures are circling with a number of extraction industries looking to take advantage of the loosened or eliminated ...and Zinke was the guy that drew up the reduction plans...so yeah tthe dummie that can’t out his hat on correctly it doing lots of damage to the national parks...

[Robert Roaldi]

The total surface area of the Parks is only a small percentage of the total land area of the USA. There must be natural resources to harvest all over the place. Why put pressure on the Parks? Is it because they get to use that land for free instead of having to pay someone royalties? Is that it?

What an inspiring vision.

John Howard Kuntsler put it well in different context (https://www.ted.com/talks/james_howard_kunstler_dissects_suburbia, in which he criticizes modern American urban design). Pretty soon you could end up with a country full of places no one cares about. But hey, some rich guy will get a little bit richer.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

...National monuments are not exactly like national parks...

QED

So, any proof national parks are to be downsized?

[Robert Roaldi]

I wasn't aware of the distinction between the two types of properties.

But how is that relevant? Why would it be ok to shrink one type but not the other? There may be different legal procedures involved, I suppose, but that's not the main point of the criticism, I don't think. Were we having a legalistic procedural discussion?

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

I wasn't aware of the distinction between the two types of properties.

But how is that relevant? Why would it be ok to shrink one type but not the other? There may be different legal procedures involved, I suppose, but that's not the main point of the criticism, I don't think. Were we having a legalistic procedural discussion?

There are different levels of protection, and National Parks obviously have better ones, for a reason. National monuments, however, could be changed by executive order. If I am not mistaken (please correct me if wrong), Obama expanded Escalante that way. If so, if one president can expand, another can reduce.

Note that I am not debating the merits of expanding vs. reducing. Nor I am stating that expanding is always wrong and reducing always good. Just pointing out the habit of (deliberately?) confusing the two categories, not unlike confusing legal vs. illegal immigration (which is almost always deliberate).

[Alan Goldhammer]

National Parks must be created by an Act of Congress and there are 60 of these.  There have been some National Parks that were decommissioned.  National Monuments are also a protected land but can only be created by land owned or controlled by the US government and proclaimed as such by the President.  National Parks are administered by the National Parks Service while National Monuments may be administered by one of a number of Federal agencies including the Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, Forest Service, etc.  Some National Parks were upgraded from Monuments by Congress.

I hope this furthers this interesting discussion.

[LesPalenik]

For a hiker or a photographer seeking solitude, undisturbed nature, and beautiful scenery, there is not much difference between those two types of outdoor areas.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

For a hiker or a photographer seeking solitude, undisturbed nature, and beautiful scenery, there is not much difference between those two types of outdoor areas.

There are still 1 million acres left in Escalante, for instance, for your enjoyment.

[Alan Klein]

I wasn't aware of the distinction between the two types of properties.

But how is that relevant? Why would it be ok to shrink one type but not the other? There may be different legal procedures involved, I suppose, but that's not the main point of the criticism, I don't think. Were we having a legalistic procedural discussion?

National Parks are created by an act of Congress approved by the president like all other legislation.  It reflects the will of the people.  On the other hand, National Monuments act was set up at the time to give presidents unilateral emergency acts to separate out relatively small areas.  It wasn't set out to give presidents dictatorial rights to do what they want, where ever they want. The last president set aside huge areas at his own discretion.  While it might seem wonderful to me a New Jerseyite living 2000 miles away, there are many people local to the Monument areas who felt this imposed on their rights and wishes.  The magnitude of Obama's decision should have gone through Congress so the People could decide, not just one person. Then it could have been set up as a National Park rather than a Monument. Presidents aren't kings. 

The other issue with using the Monuments Act is like other presidential orders, it can be overruled or changed by subsequent presidents.  Doing it through Congressional legislation makes it more permanent as it would require a whole other act of Congress with presidential approval to change it, something that doesn't happen too often. 

[Schewe]

While it might seem wonderful to me a New Jerseyite living 2000 miles away, there are many people local to the Monument areas who felt this imposed on their rights and wishes.  The magnitude of Obama's decision should have gone through Congress so the People could decide, not just one person. Then it could have been set up as a National Park rather than a Monument. Presidents aren't kings.

Presidents aren't kings...and you are saying that about who? Obama?

The facts of the case of federal vs state and local control was litigated at length in Trump II so I won't bother to retry the case against what Trump has done....but the founder and CEO of Patagonia are engaged in a strong fight against what Trump has done. You can read more about it in this NYTimes article Patagonia v. Trump

The outdoor retailer has supported grass-roots environmental activists for decades. Now it is suing the president in a bid to protect Bears Ears National Monument.

I will say that the local control isn't a great argument...not when local yahoos with rifles shot up ancient petroglyphs as reported here As Utah County develops, what is being done to protect ancient petroglyphs?

Provo • As Steve Acerson perused ancient petroglyphs on the west side of Utah Lake on an unseasonably warm February morning, he started getting more and more upset.

The rock art enthusiast and president of the Utah Rock Art Research Association goes out frequently to identify rock art, and is intimately familiar with many of the known petroglyphs in Utah County — he helped discover many of them.

But as he reached down to point out a petroglyph depicting a bighorn sheep, he noticed the top half of the sheep had been damaged to the point that anyone who wanted to could pick up the detached piece of rock depicting the sheep's head, put it in their pocket, and walk away.

The reason for the damage? The piece of rock depicting the bighorn sheep lay at the base of a ridge used as a backdrop in a popular target shooting area on public lands.

But it's not just random mindless destruction going on but also wholesale looting of ancient Indian site as reported by Smithsonian magazine: An Exclusive Look at the Greatest Haul of Native American Artifacts, Ever

At dawn on June 10, 2009, almost 100 federal agents pulled up to eight homes in Blanding, Utah, wearing bulletproof vests and carrying side arms. An enormous cloud hung over the region, one of them recalled, blocking out the rising sun and casting an ominous glow over the Four Corners region, where the borders of Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico meet. At one hilltop residence, a team of a dozen agents banged on the door and arrested the owners—a well-respected doctor and his wife. Similar scenes played out across the Four Corners that morning as officers took an additional 21 men and women into custody. Later that day, the incumbent interior secretary and deputy U.S. attorney general, Ken Salazar and David W. Ogden, announced the arrests as part of “the nation’s largest investigation of archaeological and cultural artifact thefts.” The agents called it Operation Cerberus, after the three-headed hellhound of Greek mythology.

It seems that locals from Blanding Utah (the closest large town near Bears Ears) have been systematically looting all over southern Utah...but yeah, they are locals and should have the right to control their own territory huh?

And you don't really want to know how the locals are hoping to exploit that land removed from Bears Ears and Escalante...

Drilling and Mining Interests Pushed to Shrink Utah National Monuments, Documents Reveal

Even though Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke insisted “this is not about energy,” environmentalists and public lands advocates have long suspected the Trump administration's cuts to national monuments were driven by its push for more drilling, mining and other development.

Now, internal Interior Department documents obtained by the New York Times show that gaining access to the oil, natural gas and uranium deposits in Bears Ears and coal reserves in Grand Staircase-Escalante were indeed key reasons behind President Trump's drastic cuts to the two monuments in Utah.

In March 2017, an aide to Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) asked a senior Interior Department official to consider reduced boundaries for Bears Ears to remove land that contained oil and natural gas deposits. Hatch's office sent a map depicting a boundary change for the southeast portion of the Bears Ears monument to “resolve all known mineral conflicts,” the email said, referring to oil and gas sites on the land that the state's public schools wanted to lease out to increase state funds.

As the Times reported, the map that Hatch's office provided—and notably sent about a month before Sec. Zinke publicly initiated his review of national monuments in April—was incorporated almost exactly into the much larger reductions President Trump would later announce.

Yeah, sorry...pretty sure the locals aren't the best judges of what is done. So far they have not been good stewards. Seems greed is their primary motive...kinda like Trump, huh?

[LesPalenik]

National Parks are created by an act of Congress approved by the president like all other legislation.  It reflects the will of the people.  On the other hand, National Monuments act was set up at the time to give presidents unilateral emergency acts to separate out relatively small areas.  It wasn't set out to give presidents dictatorial rights to do what they want, where ever they want. The last president set aside huge areas at his own discretion.  While it might seem wonderful to me a New Jerseyite living 2000 miles away, there are many people local to the Monument areas who felt this imposed on their rights and wishes.  The magnitude of Obama's decision should have gone through Congress so the People could decide, not just one person. Then it could have been set up as a National Park rather than a Monument. Presidents aren't kings. 

The other issue with using the Monuments Act is like other presidential orders, it can be overruled or changed by subsequent presidents.  Doing it through Congressional legislation makes it more permanent as it would require a whole other act of Congress with presidential approval to change it, something that doesn't happen too often.

These are technicalities and rules how to administer the public lands. More important are the reasons why the National Monuments areas were created. 

The original theory of national parks and monuments was that they would exemplify the spirit of the country. They were the American cathedrals. But instead they attract fights over collective identity. The Malheur occupiers and the opponents of Bears Ears are only the latest iteration of a long fight to free these lands from certain kinds of people. Those who created the parks, monuments, and federal wilderness system preferred certain kinds of residents and visitors: John Muir disliked and made fun of the shepherds and laborers in Yosemite; Teddy Roosevelt and his friends disliked and wanted to escape immigrants in the cities; the creation of Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks involved expulsion of native people.  There has never been enough public space for the contending publics who want it. And so, the land exemplifies the country: It is the site of fights over whose country is being taken away, who is the patriot and who is the usurper or trespasser.

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/07/trumpian-nativism-is-transforming-the-american-landscape/564026/

[BernardLanguillier]

Same old problem, Alan. It's the Washington Post, and they actually want me to pay money to read their fake news. If you'll pay for me I might at least glance at it.

I just saw the movie the "The Post". I must say I was impressed by the bravery of those man who risked jail time to let the truth go out because they understood that free press is key for democracy as a counter power for the lies of the government on some topics.

At that time it was the Vietnam war, but many Republican voters were negative about the release of these facts.

History has shown who was right.

Cheers,
Bernard

[Robert Roaldi]

I just saw the movie the "The Post". I must say I was impressed by the bravery of those man who risked jail time to let the truth go out because they understood that free press is key for democracy as a counter power for the lies of the government on some topics.

At that time it was the Vietnam war, but many Republican voters were negative about the release of these facts.

History has shown who was right.

Cheers,
Bernard

A bt off topic, but I'll repeat something I've written on these pages before. Whenever I hear people in power complain about the biased press, it just means to me that the press is doing its job and is on the right track.

[Alan Klein]

These are technicalities and rules how to administer the public lands. More important are the reasons why the National Monuments areas were created. 

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/07/trumpian-nativism-is-transforming-the-american-landscape/564026/

Les, First off, I'm for National Parks.  In April,  my wife and I drove over 2000 miles visiting and photographing a slew of national and other type parks in Utah where the two in question (we didn't visit those though) and others in Arizona and regular parks in NM as well.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/alanklein2000/albums/72157694819890421

However, it's not a technicality between National Park and National Monuments.  National Parks require the will of the people through Congressional legislation, not a president's lone decision.  Monuments were intended to be small to protect specific antiquities and archeological sites.   Here's the actual law American Antiquities Act of 1906 that set up Monuments. https://www.nps.gov/history/local-law/anti1906.htm  There was no intent to cover the huge park areas that Pres Clinton and Obama created for Big Ears and Grand Staircase, or in fact many of the other wonderful National Parks that were legislated into law by Congress..  In any case, Trump didn't reverse them wholly but reduced one by 85% and the other by about half.  The way to avoid these back and forth political decisions by Presidents is to memorialize them in legislation.  That requires Congress.

[Alan Klein]

I just saw the movie the "The Post". I must say I was impressed by the bravery of those man who risked jail time to let the truth go out because they understood that free press is key for democracy as a counter power for the lies of the government on some topics.

At that time it was the Vietnam war, but many Republican voters were negative about the release of these facts.

History has shown who was right.

Cheers,
Bernard

Just to clarify history for you.  It was a Democrat, President Johnson, who started and escalated the war in Vietnam with his phony Tonkin Bay incident, his lie claiming North Vietnam attacked our ships first. It was Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, a Democrat under Democrat President Johnson who lied for years to the public about our ability to win the war after telling Ellsworth of the Pentagon Papers that he didn't think we could win.  I didn't see the movie.  But it seems the movie wants to re-write history if its intent was to blame the war on Republicans.