Out of the Wilderness
Apr 30, 2009 | Filed Under Industry Research, Product Development
We decided to run this article just so we could disagree with it…see our comments at the end!
People are shunning the great outdoors. Blame conservationists, not video games
Jul 10th 2008 | YOSEMITE VILLAGE
From The Economist print edition
ON JULY 4th, normally the busiest public holiday of the year, tourists were put off by high petrol prices and more than 300 wildfires raging across California. On Memorial Day, traditionally the beginning of the summer season, it was cold. In 1999 there was a grisly murder. In 1997 the Merced river flooded, inundating a hotel and wiping out hundreds of campsites. There are always excuses for the absence of people in Yosemite National Park.
The number of visitors to California’s most spectacular valley has dropped for nine out of the past 13 years, and seems to be heading down again this year. Even in 2007—a relatively busy year—attendance was 11% below the mid-1990s peak. In America as a whole the number of visitors to national parks and historic sites peaked in 1987. Visitors are staying for less time and camping less often, especially in the wilderness. And rangers are hearing less American-accented English. Were it not for British and German tourists enjoying the weak dollar, the parks would be desolate.
Falling enthusiasm for what the writer Wallace Stegner called America’s “best idea” is especially striking in such a fast-growing part of the country. Since 1994 California has swollen from 31.5m to over 38m people. The speediest growth is inland, close to parks like Joshua Tree, Sequoia and Yosemite. The same pattern holds further east. Larry Swanson of the Centre for the Rocky Mountain West notes a strong correlation between population increase and proximity to national parks and forests. Americans plainly think it is a good idea to live near national parks, but they are not so keen on visiting them.
Americans are retreating from other outdoor activities too. Despite an explosion in the deer population, the number of hunters fell from 19.1m to 12.5m between 1975 and 2006. Fishing has declined more steeply, particularly among the young. This worries everybody from urban liberals (who fret about the health of a generation growing up indoors) to rural conservatives (who fear that public lands will be closed to hunters if not enough turn up). The “No Child Left Inside” act, which would pay for children to be taught about the delights of the countryside, is trundling through Congress. Nebraska now provides turkey-hunting lessons for women.
By contrast, it is not clear to everyone in the National Park Service that the lack of visitors is a problem, admits Dean Reeder, its tourism director. Some rangers, indeed, seem to view visitors as an impediment to the smooth running of the parks. Wiser heads know this is folly. As Americans lose interest in the national parks, they will become less willing to pay for them through taxes. Some worry about Hispanics, a fast-growing group that seems resistant to the call of the wild.
Like many things that go wrong in America, the drift away from nature is commonly blamed on television, video games and the internet. This is implausible. The number of park visitors rose steeply between the 1950s and the mid-1980s, even as the first two electronic lures spread. Rather more credible is the explanation that Americans are more fearful for their children and have become unwilling to leave them in the company of strange men, green-hatted or otherwise. But the biggest reason of all is competition.
Attendance at national parks was not the only thing that peaked between the late 1980s and the early 1990s. In 1991 America’s homicide rate reached 9.8 per 100,000 people. Many cities were known for lawlessness and grot; not surprisingly, holiday-makers were passing them up for greener spots. Then, miraculously, the murder rate began to slide, falling to just 5.5 per 100,000 in 2000. Led by New York, cities spruced themselves up and began to attract more tourists.
Fred Kent of the Project for Public Spaces, a consultancy, reckons Americans have rediscovered the pleasures of densely-populated, exciting places. Not all of these are cities, although they tend to look like them. In 1994, the year Yosemite’s crowds were at their thickest, MGM announced plans to build a casino on the Las Vegas strip that resembled New York. By the time it was finished, three years later, work had begun on Paris and Venice. Shopping malls began to transform themselves from covered boxes into ersatz downtowns open to the elements.
Yosemite is long on staggering views but short on what most people would today regard as entertainment. It contains fewer diversions than it once did. Scott Gediman, the park’s spokesman, points out that it used to have a Cadillac dealership and a zoo. Although pretty, Yosemite’s hotels are basic compared to most cities (if they were in Las Vegas they would have been dynamited long ago). Camp Curry, a vaguely military cluster of fixed tents and cabins, has hardly changed in a century.
As in other national parks, Yosemite’s rooms tend to sell out in descending price order. Expensive hotels go before cheaper ones—indeed, they routinely book up as soon as reservations can be made, 366 days in advance. Cabins with bathrooms go before cabins without. This suggests there is pent-up demand for luxury hotel rooms. Not only is there little chance more will be built; it is proving almost impossible to put up a handful of campsites.
The Merced river flood of 1997 almost halved the number of campsites in Yosemite Valley. Today there are just 464, accommodating 2,700 people at most. The park wants to build more, although not nearly as many as there were before the flood. This plan, which is part of a modest package of improvements to the park’s infrastructure and one of its hotels, has been opposed by local conservation groups on the ground that it fails to address threats to the valley’s ecology.
So far conservationists have managed to block the renovations. And they have opened a broader front in the battle against development. Earlier this year a federal court ruled that the National Park Service must limit human use of Yosemite Valley. That may mean a daily cap on visitor numbers. If the park imposes one, the example is likely to spread across America. This will create pressure to solve environmental problems by turning more people away.
This is a shame, and a self-defeating exercise. America’s environmental movement emerged in the 19th century to push for national parks. In the 20th century it sold them to the public through photographs and writing. It now seems bent on driving people away from them.
Comments
One Response to “Out of the Wilderness”
Leave a Reply
Off the Radar
Visit us at travelofftheradar.com for the complete archive of past editions as well as beautiful photos, travel writing and video from our adventuring readers.
This article argues against conservationists’ goals of limiting human use in national parks, which brings us to a discussion of capacity limits in wild spaces - a complex issue.
I am in favor of managed use of natural spaces, but I think this article is missing the point in some ways. It seems to be saying that without more luxury hotel rooms at Yosemite, for example, no one will go there, ie development of that kind is required. “Although pretty, Yosemite’s hotels are basic compared to most cities (if they were in Las Vegas they would have been dynamited long ago).” Why in the world we want a Vegas-like hotel in Yosemite?!
I also think some of the statistics are misleading -for example, the statistics showing a decline in hunting and fishing are used to demonstrate a decline in nature-based pursuits by people in the USA. This contrasts with what we’ve seen in the adventure tourism industry over the past few years - a growing interest in travel that includes natural, physical and cultural explorations.
Also, check out the Outdoor Industry of America’s (outdoorindustry.org) 2009 Outdoor Recreation Topline Report, which offers the results of a survey of 40,000 North Americans:
“According to the report, an increasing number of Americans participated in nature-based, outdoor activities in 2008. The study finds sizeable participation increases in many nature-based activities including double-digit increases in backpacking, mountain biking and trail running and close to a ten percent increase in hiking and camping.”
The article closes by saying it would be a shame to see daily caps on visitor numbers in national parks. I think what we want in every instance is volumes of visitors matched to the capacity of the environment and local communities to support them. Articles like this, which use incomplete statistics and advocate for the construction of luxury accommodation in national parks are misleading!