MARTIN - A Policy Implementation Analysis of Fee Demo
"20 distinct concerns regarding recreation fees were identified."
1. Fees are double taxation.
2. Recreation should be supported by tax dollars.
3. Our national heritage should be free to all.
4. Fees are unfair to local visitors.
5. Low income users are adversely affected.
6. Inequity between user groups.
7. Inequity with logging and grazing (etc.) subsidies.
8. Fees will bring increased management.
9. Decisions will be influenced by revenue needs.
10. Public mistrust of agencies' use of fee dollars.
11. Fees will end up replacing tax dollars, not supplementing them.
12. Fees will inhibit agencies from requesting more tax dollars from Congress.
13. Fees will create a buyer/seller relationship between the agencies and the public.
14. Fees may alter the pristine wilderness experience.
15. Fees may lead to the public's expecting more services.
16. Fees are inappropriate where no facilities exist.
17. Visitors may be displaced to non-fee areas.
18. Fees discourage volunteerism and inhibit public stewardship of the land.
19. In some areas, it will be hard to make fee compliance convenient.
20. Fees imply that public lands benefit only users, not society at large.
"Agency fee programs appear to adequately address four" (of the 20).
Fee Demo Progress Report to Congress (1998)...a "potential objective of a recreation fee system may be to ensure that no individuals are excluded by the fees." ... "But there is little evidence that the concern is being translated into the design of fee programs."
"But where are the safeguards that prevent fees from resulting in increased development, which, in turn, begets more fees, which begets more development?... Examination of agency fee demonstration documents yielded no explicit recognition of this concern. What is to stop revenue considerations from becoming a driving force in management decisions? ...Again, there appears to be no explicit recognition of this concern in any of the documents outlining the agency fee programs."
"The majority of monitoring and evaluation to this point has focused on the questions of whether the public is willing to pay, and if so, how much? Monitoring and evaluation efforts thus far have failed to address other important questions about how fees affect visitors, such as whether fees are displacing people, whether paying fees changes the nature of the experience..." (etc.)
SCHNEIDER & BUDRUK - Displacement by Fee Demo
"Few outdoor recreation issues have been as controversial as fee implementation for public land use. When asked in a simple yes-or-no format if they had changed their visitation as a result of the fee, about one-third of respondents indicated they had."
"More than one-half of visitors contacted at this Forest Service area indicated they chose the area because it had no fee. Another unanswered question is the number of visitors who were completely displaced or deterred from coming to the Forest altogether because of the fee program."
VOGT & WILLIAMS - Fees at Desolation Wilderness, CA
"Wilderness users who value primitiveness may not want 'more' services and facilities. The very essence of wilderness is a resource untouched and undeveloped."
TRAINOR & NORGAARD - Wilderness Values
"...user disapproval with treating the wilderness as a commodity...with respect to spiritual value, 69% indicated yes, they acknowledge spiritual value of wilderness."
Click here to read excerpts from the Journal of Leisure Research.