How does Interior Secretary want to redefine the public lands landscape?/DOI

From dismantling national monuments to privatizing national park operations to skirting the National Environmental Policy Act to opening parklands to hunting and vanquishing wilderness. Is that Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke's agenda? It doesn't take much of an imagination to see it so.

After all, he's already seen President Trump adopt his recommendation to break up Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears national monuments. (Whether that action withstands judicial review, however, remains to be seen.) 

And the Interior secretary has displayed interest in seeing more privatization of operations in the National Park System. In that regard, it's not difficult to imagine that his decision to keep the National Park System open, as much as possible, during the government shutdown was a trial run for more privatization.

That was noticed by Rob Arnbarger, a former National Park Service regional director and superintendent.

"It negates any real closure and substantiates the notion that parks don't need the National Park Service to run or protect them," said Mr. Arnbarger, who worked for the Park Service for more than 30 years. "They can be run more effectively by private, commercial entities not subject to congressional inaction. Whether it was intended or not, keeping parks open for the economic sector has only validated the notion that privatized parks are a better management scheme than governmental management."

But what about NEPA and wilderness?

Back in September, when we asked "How Much Of Secretary Zinke's Approach To Conservation Can Public Lands Tolerate?", we pointed to a secretarial order Mr. Zinke signed to "support sportsmen and enhance wildlife conservation."

On its face, that secretarial order seems rather innocuous. But if you take a close look, there's an interesting section that addresses a "proposed categorical exclusion for proposed projects that utilize common practices solely intended to enhance or restore habitat for species such as sage-grouse and/or mule deer..."

"Categorical exclusions" are used to get around NEPA requirements for public scrutiny of a proposed action. What exactly the secretary was getting at back in September was a bit murky. But just the other day the secretary, an avid hunter, established a "Hunting and Shooting Sports Conservation Council."

"The Council is intended to provide the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture with advice regarding the establishment and implementation of existing and proposed policies and authorities with regard to wildlife and habitat conservation," read a release from the Interior Department. "The Council will examine ways to benefit wildlife resources; encourage partnership among the public, the sporting conservation organizations, state, tribal, territorial, and federal government; and benefit recreational hunting and recreational shooting sports."

Among the tasks Mr. Zinke assigned the council was to review past Executive Orders pertaining to, among other things, policies and programs that "promote opportunities and expand access to hunting and shooting sports on public and private lands."

“Hunters and anglers are the backbone of wildlife and habitat conservation in America. Through the purchase of duck stamps, bows, ammo, firearms, and more, sportsmen and women contribute billions of dollars to conservation. From my perspective, the more sportsmen we have in the woods and waters, the better our wildlife and habitat will be,” Secretary Zinke said earlier this month.

If you take the secretary for his word, his goal is to open up more public lands to more hunting, and the National Park System is the last realm of public lands that greatly limits hunting within its borders.

Seem far-fetched?

Just as we asked you to connect the dots last week in regards to the secretary's long-term vision for how the National Park System should operate, try connecting the dots to see how the Interior secretary might maneuver to allow more hunting in the National Park System and less wilderness:

* He long has touted hunting and acted on behalf of the hunting community.

* He appointed Susan LaPierre, co-chair of the National Rifle Association's Women's Leadership Forum and wife of NRA Executive Director Wayne LaPierre, to the National Park Foundation Board of Directors.

* Directed those within the National Park Service and Bureau of Land Management who oversee national monuments to "amend National Monument Management Plans to include or expand hunting, recreational shooting, and fishing opportunities" where possible.

* He recently appointed a hunting conservation council and tasked it to look for ways to expand hunting and sport shooting on public, and private, lands.

* He issued that secretarial order back in September calling for a categorical exclusion that would allow the department to skirt NEPA with an end goal of improving habitat for species. Allowing hunters to reduce burgeoning elk herds in parks such as Rocky Mountain National Park could be seen as a way of improving habitat.

* Official wilderness bans motorized vehicles, such as small OHVs and ATVs hunters might use to penetrate deep into landscapes. Could a categorical exclusion be used to allow such vehicles and their roads into national parks and within Wilderness Study Areas, or even official wilderness, in the National Park System? Glacier National Park, the backdrop to Mr. Zinke's long-time home, has no official wilderness and lots of game, ranging from bighorn sheep and mountain goats to moose and elk. And on Monday the secretary cleared the way for a road to cut through a national wildlife refuge in Alaska.

"My interpretation of that is that it means they’re going to try to circumvent NEPA," one long-time parks observer said of Secretary Zinke's appointment of the hunting council, and before that a Recreation Advisory Committee to develop suggestions including, among other things, how "public-private partnerships" can improve access and infrastructure on public lands. “Will they be able to do that? I sure hope not. But it certainly seems to be a possibility.”

Another observer said groups are lining up with lawsuits ready if the Interior secretary moves in that direction.

Public lands in general, and the National Park System specifically, are integral parts of this country. We need the space and environmental resources they provide and protect. Just look at the congestion of the East Coast without a large public landscape. The more public lands are chipped away at, either by opening them up to energy exploration or tossing aside regulations that restrict new roads and developments, the more we as a nation lose.

Mr. Zinke continues to promote himself as a latter-day Theodore Roosevelt, but his actions better define him as a prodigy of Gifford Pinchot, who believed in conservation but also that, “The object of our forest policy is not to preserve the forests because they are beautiful-or because they are refuges for the wild creatures of the wilderness-but the making of prosperous homes-every other consideration becomes secondary.”