Sold Outdoors

The United States National Parks Service (NPS) has proposed a massive entrance-fee hike that carries a cost far greater than its $70 price tag.

According to this news release from NPS, the peak rate at 17 heavily visited parks, including Washington state's Mount Rainier and Olympic, would jump from about $25 to $70 in 2018. NPS argues that the rate hike helps address maintenance costs for the parks.

Without a doubt, we must fully fund and maintain our parks. However, the approach taken by NPS exacts a much heavier toll than the money for an entrance pass. I would pay the $70 because I love these places and because I can afford it, but for many, the price will turn them away, and that's where the real cost emerges.

Are we willing to pay the price for losing our connection
to places like Paradise in Mount Rainier National Park?

We preserved national parks as part of a social, cultural, and environmental trust. They were and continue to be places where we can go and connect with nature and other people more closely. Instituting a prohibitive entrance fee destroys that connection, cutting people off from important human and environmental relationships. Once severed, those bonds wither and fade, leaving our planet and ourselves at risk and opening the door for the possibility of privatized national parks (a great and devastating oxymoron). Violating a sacred trust like our national parks with a privatization scheme would threaten our deepest values.

As I said above, the national parks need full funding, but satisfying their budgets calls for more collective commitment, not less. Consequently, we must reexamine our priorities. Do we want tax cuts, particularly for the richest individuals, at any price, or do we want to have a society that makes us proud and nourishes us by returning the investment we make in it?

Whatever we choose, we'll pay something, but I doubt we can afford the first option.

This Bear is Just Right

Something's been missing from the North Cascades in Washington state, and here it is: the grizzly bear.

Although grizzlies aren't associated with the Pacific Northwest the way species like the orca and salmon are, the North Cascades represent an important habitat for the bears, a native species that hasn't been recorded in the area for several years. Because of this, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife, and the United States National Park Service are working together on a plan to recover the population in the North Cascades. A public comment period for the plan runs through March 26.

Conservation Northwest, a region environmental organization, supports the proposed plan and encourages the public to comment in favor of it. The organization provides information that can help individuals put together and submit their comments. That information can be accessed here. Conservation Northwest also has a video about the recovery plan. View it below:



As the video demonstrates, despite not receiving a lot of attention as a species of the Pacific Northwest, the grizzly occupies a key part in the North Cascades ecosystem and in the identity of the region. Allowing this PNW native to disappear forever from Washington certainly wouldn't be right.

Use the link on Conservation Northwest's Web site to make a comment in support of grizzly recovery and let them again sleep in their beds in the North Cascades.

It's All So Familiar

My concern about global warming goes back many years, but the issue recently hit home for me in new ways.

Born in Washington, I know about the state's climbing snow lines and how warming helps spread a fungus that poses risks for the region's iconic Douglas fir. Still, seeing the following video from the National Parks Service really impacted me. Watch it below:



Washington's coast has a special place in my heart. To see the signs of change underway feels like watching a friend have trouble.

The film also contains a second powerful aspect, and this one leaves me with a better feeling. As it presents the scientific story of the Washington coast, the film acquaints us with Steven Fradkin, an ecologist whose work allows that story to be told. By doing so, it humanizes science and makes the environment more relatable through Fradkin.

Clearly, to know science, we must really know science.

Go Fisher

Although it's an awesome place, the Pacific Northwest isn't complete.

Several species were either entirely or partially wiped out from the area in the 19th and 20th centuries. These included the wolf and the fisher.

Those missing pieces have started a comeback, and people can help them take a next step. In 2008, fishers were returned to the Olympic National Park through a successful reintroduction program. Now, the National Park Service is proposing to reintroduce this member of the weasel family to the Cascade Mountains, and the agency will be taking comments on the plan until September 30. To voice your support for this next phase of reintroduction, visit this page from Conservation Northwest.

By bringing fishers back to another part of the Pacific Northwest, we help restore the full promise of this great area.