Valles Caldera = No Access for poor

In response to “Grande Experience”, an article in the Go! Section of the Albuquerque Journal about the Valles Caldera National Preserve in the Jemez:

This monument reeks of capitalism like the US Forest Service Fee Demo Program reeks of corporate profiteering.

It’s a contradiction to establish a “preserve” and then depend on it becoming financially self-sustaining, as the Valles Caldera is required to do by the year 2010. The preserve admits to having limited parking to avoid too much human impact yet it has a goal of increasing the amount of visitors by 15% each year.
Deliberately marketing to increase visitation while limiting access means that the cost of entering the preserve will have to increase in the future, making it impossible for low-income families to attend.

What the Valles Caldera is doing is similar to the US Forest Service Fee Demo Program. Under this program, the fees to do simple things like having a picnic in the park have tripled over the past few years, resulting in less people using the parks. At the same time the forest Service continues to spend money to advertise with goals of increased visitors. The visitors that come pay money and therefore expect to have an experience similar to Disney Land (for more information on this google “Fee Demo” or look at sites like Arizona No Fee Coalition and wildwilderness.org).

A preserve should be just that. Leave it alone. Allow access to users as if it were public lands, BLM or nation forest. If something is truly a preserve, there should be no new infrastructures or marketing of new activities.