It’s National Parks Week (apparently) so I thought I’d celebrate it by doing a little investigating.
The International Paper Company privately holds tracks of land to grow trees for production. The largest of these acreages is in the mid-South region at 1.2 million acres. While the trees grow, the company sells the use of the land for purposes of camping, hunting, fishing and hiking adding up to $5.5 million dollars (25% of revenue). That’s a huge incentive to keep the forest sustainable and the firm even cuts trees down in such a way that it maintains wildlife cover.
Some may say that this is a relatively small amount of land and nature needs more room. But if this little-known bit of forest was a national park it would be the tenth largest by acre, tied with the Grand Canyon. Privatizing national parks is most certainly a profitable and environmentally sound business opportunity.
Contrast this success story with the National Park of American Samoa: 9,000 acres of rainforest and coral. In 2003, it received over $1.2 million of taxpayer money for its operating costs. Hot Springs, the only national park smaller than American Samoa, had over 1.5 million visitors (with a budget of about $3.36 million). Black Canyon of the Gunnison (whose budget barely edges over one million) had about 165,000 visitors. So how many did American Samoa had? 200,000? 500,000?
Try 366. That’s right, just 366 people: an average of one person a day, at the cost of $3,478 per person. You can rent whole floors of hotels for less.
Assuming that a private company couldn’t cut the park’s cost (unlikely because federally funded parks have to wade through costly requirements, among other reasons) and assuming advertising wouldn’t boost attendance (also unlikely; the place is gorgeous) then this private park would probably go out of business. If this happened, environmentalists would claim this is why the park has to be national—its value is so high, it has to be preserved no matter what. Of course if they really believed that, they would have shelled out the four grand for admission.
Monday, April 18, 2005
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3 comments:
I'm going to have to disagree with you on the Samoa attendance rate.
Unless some private company can move it out of the middle of the pacific ocean, it's probably going to stay relatively unvisited.
It is a lot easier to get to Colorado than the middle of the ocean.
From LA, it's 7300 miles to Hawaii. From Hawaii, it's 2600 miles to Samoa. If you felt like traveling almost 10,000 miles to go somewhere, visit the Black Canyon five or six times.
I thought about the isolation of the park and no doubt it drastically hurts attendence. But people travel to exotic places all the time that are even more isolated and farther away (like African safaris and desert trips). Some people, like celebrities, prefer the isolation. I can imagine the park as a high end preserve with a few buildings for a resort and the rest for hiking trails and what not. There can even be a bit for people who are traveling in the area as it is or as part of a cruise.
Not only can we conclude, we can witness. The International Paper Company also engages in controlled burning in its forests.
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