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Fees are
collected at the entrance to Arches
National Park.
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In Desert
Solitaire, Edward Abbey talks about how the Park Service is catering
to the needs of Industry Tourism.
They are doing this because they have realized where money can be
made. The Park Service has started
to forget the weekend explorer who likes to escape civilization for a
while and listen to himself think.
Now the Park Service is concentrating their efforts on what they
believe has to be done to make the more of the public come to the
National Parks. The people they
are targeting now are not the ones who actually enjoy the solitude and
peacefulness nature offers.
Instead they are beginning to appeal to those who do not enjoy
walking around on the hard ground and breathing fresh air, but would
rather snap photographs of the sights they see from the comforts of their
recreational vehicles. These
people do not really care about what happens to the parks, all they want
is a new page for their scrapbook.
The Park Service is simply got the wrong green in front of their
eyes. Fees are now required to
enter parks and camp. Also,
concession areas have been setup to make even more profit from the park
visitors. They do not care as much
about the parks as they do about the profit made from visitors. Communities close to National Parks
also want parks to be easily accessible and inviting to tourists because
their economies strengthen as more people visit the parks. Also, contractors look forward to
paving roads and building campsites.
With all these pressures for developing the National Parks, it is
not surprising that many parks are being developed. However, it is still amazing that an
organization setup to protect our National Parks for generations to come
can justify cutting up beautiful landscapes with its only intention being
profit.
Greed
plays a role in the chapters discussing the search and mining of uranium
as well. When uranium was found to
be located in the ground around Moab,
Utah,
treasure-seekers immediately ran out and made claims on ground that at
one time was thought to be completely useless. They started developing mines and
pulling ore from the ground not concerning themselves with the
consequences of handling radioactive material. All they were concerned about was
taking as much of this material from the ground as possible before their
market was lost. This shows how
careless men can be when it comes to making money. Many people get so caught up in getting
more that they lose sight of what is important in life. As they become obsessed, they make
excuses about their behavior. They
say it is to improve their lives or make things easier for their
children. None of these lies hold
up because time begins to tell the story.
Many people end up losing their savings or even their life because
of their reckless decisions. These
results were no different in Moab when large corporations
started causing the smaller owners to lose their uranium operations. The greed for money is something that
haunts human nature and must be overcome by people or else it will take
them over.
by Clint Ary
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