Yosemite National Park Planning: The Dark Side
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Yosemite National Park Planning - Connor Murphy
Paige
Chapter 1: The National Parks—America's Best Idea
After watching The National Parks: America's Best Idea, a 2009 documentary film by Ken Burns, I thought it would be a good time to once again visit Yosemite National Park.
I first visited Yosemite National Park 70 years ago, when I was 6 years old. I've been returning to the park every few years ever since. But over time, I've become more and more critical of the commercialization of nature there. On my last trip, I ended up driving into a traffic jam in a new, still-under-construction parking lot. I felt thoroughly disgusted with the crowding, traffic, continuing proliferation of inappropriate construction projects, and the desecration of nature.
When I got home, I looked up Yosemite on the Internet and found that the plundering of nature was the result of nearly 40 years of inept national park planning—it piqued my interest.
Professional Curiosity
I came to the conclusion that dreadful planning stood at the center of Yosemite National Park's failure to solve its long-standing problems because I've spent most of my adult life working as a land use planner solving problems for a living.
I've written enough plans during my career to know at a glance when someone is doing legitimate planning or just out, to fool the general public into thinking planning is being done.
My planning experience ranges from leading large-scale planning projects from Alaska to Central America, to obtaining millions in planning grants for Native American tribal governments. I've worked with indigenous peoples living in isolated locales and I've worked with cities at the center of innovation. But most importantly, I've written plans for wilderness and backcountry areas many times larger than Yosemite National Park.
You may be asking yourself, what qualifies this author to write a book about Yosemite? My answer to that is I'm no more qualified to write about Yosemite per se, than any other park visitor, but I am more qualified to write about the deplorable state of planning I witnessed while visiting Yosemite.
As a casual visitor to Yosemite, I'll refrain from trying to tell readers how to fix the Park—I'm not qualified to do that—but I will tell readers what I learned about Yosemite's planning: When it comes to planning, I'm an expert.
I hold a Masters in Urban and Regional Planning and I've spent over 30 years working in the profession.
Going over the plans I've written, I picked out the two that come closest in scope to the plans that need to be written for Yosemite National Park.
• Ceñaliulriit Coastal Management Plan . A natural resource management plan for the 48,000 sq. mi. Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta Region of Alaska. The plan was designed to facilitate oil and gas development without degrading habitat within 36,000 sq. mi. of wetlands and the world's second largest wildlife refuge.
• Comprehensive Salmon Management Plan: Prince William Sound . A fisheries resource plan for the 37,000 sq. mi. Prince William Sound region of Alaska. The plan improved the general economy and enhanced the 750 vessel fishing industry. Over 200 salmon spawning streams were surveyed and eight world-class hatcheries were constructed based on the results of the study.
Yosemite National Park, by comparison, covers only 1,100 square miles—not nearly as big as places I've written plans for, but still related in some ways.
The Making of the National Parks
When I started my investigation of Yosemite National Park planning I found three aspects, few are aware of:
• The park was founded as a profit-making theme park
and destination resort.
• The park has always been managed as a profit-making business.
• The park is run by a sub rosa organization, ineffectual and suspicious.
Abraham Lincoln was the American president who set aside Yosemite Valley and its surrounding territory for public use: [I]n 1864, President Abraham Lincoln signed legislation giving Yosemite Valley and the nearby Mariposa Big Tree Grove to the state of California upon the express conditions that the premises shall be held for public use, resort and recreation.
¹
Then, eight years later, President Grant expanded the legislation's concept by creating Yellowstone National Park. Yosemite Valley and its surrounding territory were added to the national park system in 1890.²
In 1916, Congress passed The Organic Act,³ which created the National Park Service, to manage the national parks and to conserve the scenery, the natural and historic objects, and the wildlife therein; and provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.
Public Use, Resort, and Recreation
The NPS, from its inception, took Lincoln's words, public use, resort and recreation
to heart—by creating theme parks and destination resorts. According to Wikipedia, In common language, the terms theme park and amusement park are often synonymous. However, a theme park can be regarded as a distinct style of amusement park. A theme park has landscaping, buildings, and attractions that are based on one or more specific themes or stories.⁴ In the case of Yosemite, the theme is water:
Water in its myriad forms has created and sustained Yosemite National Park. As ice, it has sculptured the sheer walled valleys, polished the shining shoulders of the mountains, and gouged hundreds of lake basins. Freezing and thawing day by day through thousands of springs and autumns, it has etched sharp peaks and mantled mountain slopes with boulder fields and scree.
⁵
A destination resort is a resort that contains, in and of itself, the necessary guest attraction capabilities. A destination resort . . . offers food, drink, lodging, sports and entertainment, and