Presented below, in short paragraph format, are a number of provocative and controversial ideas which raise important issues related to the Open Space and Mountain Parks Visitor Plan. Take a look. Engage in debate and decide what you think. Don't view them as a single, "take it or leave it" package. Feel free to accept some ideas and reject others.

The Importance of Combining Reactive and Proactive Strategies

While visitor planning processes must, of necessity, be able to react to and correct ongoing environmental and visitor access problems, they must also be able to proactively identify and pursue new opportunities for strengthening human/environment connections. The prototype maps offered here illustrate several ways in which this might be accomplished.

Funding

It seems likely that we are now entering a protracted period of tight local government funding. For this reason we have sought to minimize the costs associated with the prototype projects suggested here. Most can be implemented for the cost of a few brochures, signs, and very short trail segments (consisting primarily of the recognition of existing social trails and old roads). The few exceptions involve the acquisition of equitable access rights and the possible construction of a few major new trails (which could be created using low-cost, cairn-based trail construction strategies).

User Fees / Sweat Equity Option

While certainly affordable, there are increased costs associated with connection ecology programs. And, in a society as wealthy as ours, there is no reason why visitors can't help cover these costs. Still, one of the real attractions associated with environmental recreation is that it is accessible to all income groups. So, we suggest that any user fee program include a component which allows visitors to substitute sweat equity for cash payments. For example, participating in an all-day trail construction and maintenance program could entitle visitors to a free one year pass.

Visitor Access Obligations

Assuming that the recreational opportunities embodied in the Open Space and Mountain Park system represent an important part of our community's quality of life, then we, as a community, have a moral obligation to preserve, to the maximum extent possible, those opportunities for future generations. At a minimum this means planning for visitor increases proportional with increases in the community’s population. Beyond this there is an obligation to extend these opportunities to serve a larger portion of the population (should they desire it). And, these obligations are not just limited to citizens of the City of Boulder. As a community blessed with extraordinary natural beauty, we also have an obligation to allow continuing and increasing visitor access from the larger metropolitan area. (After all, we enjoy a great many of the amenities contributed by these communities.)

Policies which build barriers which separate humans from their natural environment (something I call "separation ecology") are likely to diminish the number of people who will develop strong personal connections with the natural world. This, in turn, threatens to weaken the environmental constituency which is, in a democracy, essential to environmental preservation. Still, building environmental connections is about more than political expediency. It is about enhancing human quality of life. If environmental connections are good for people, and I believe that they are, we should try to figure out how to extend those benefits to as many people as possible. It would be tragic if an overprotective environmental movement were to confine an increasing number of people to life in which their only contact with the natural world was through Sea World-type theme parks and nature television.

Environmental damage is not the same as detectable human presence. With today's sophisticated powers of observation, we can find evidence of "damaging" human presence almost anywhere. This means that we need to be able to determine when evidence of human presence is associated with unacceptable damage and when it is merely evidence that humans are part of the ecosystem.

Remember the old story about the librarian who thought that the perfect library was one in which all of the books were neatly lined up on the shelves in brand-new condition? What the librarian failed to realize was that the library’s true potential could only be realized by accepting wear and tear on its resources. The same can be said for Open Space and Mountain Park land.

While it is imperative that effective steps be taken to limit damage to environmental resources, we need to remember the reasons why these resources are being protected. While some of these reasons stem from a moral obligation to protect natural flora and fauna for their own sake, the rest result from the desirability of building rewarding human/environment connections.

Advocates of "separation ecology" often argue that it is undesirable for animals to become accustomed to human presence. By contrast, connection ecologists view it as desirable for human and non-human species to "learn to live together." Such "cohabitation" requires first that humans learn to leave these animals alone and respect their genuinely critical habitat (as they do in Boulder with increasing sophistication). Such habitat protection measures include, for example, the avoidance of areas immediately around nesting sites and the construction of new, "compensatory" habitats such as wetlands and nesting boxes. Once animals become confident of their security, however, they are almost always able to adapt to human presence. And, this adaptation enables them to inhabit much larger areas than would otherwise be possible. After all, genuinely human-free areas are going to be in increasingly short supply.

From an ecological perspective the most important role of wild areas adjacent tourban centers is the building of human/environmental connections. It is these connections which ultimately underlie public support for a broad range of environmental goals. Preservation of urban wilderness at the cost of undermining environmental constituency building is likely to be a great mistake.

One of the more important benefits of the Open Space and Mountain Park system arises from opportunities for rock climbing and other forms of "adventure recreation" where people pursue the limits of their abilities while taking full responsibility for their personal safety. The thrill and sense of accomplishment arising from such activities is far more authentic and preferable to the "canned" roller coaster thrills of the theme park.

Expanding the circle of people with strong human/environment connections requires reaching beyond the relatively small group of folks who are already "in the know." To do this there is an important role to be played by nonprofit and commercial organizations such as the Colorado Mountain Club and various commercial outfitters which introduce and attract newcomers to environmental recreation.

Where would the environmental movement be today if people concerned about "industrial tourism" had succeeded in preventing large-scale visitation of Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, and the country’s many other national parks, monuments, and wilderness areas?

The Boulder OSMP system is an example for the entire country of how a community can pull together to preserve its natural heritage. People from many places are looking to see how well Boulder’s experiment works and whether it's something that they wish to emulate. This means that the success of open space preservation efforts across the country will, to a significant degree, depend upon Boulder’s ability to successfully balance the system’s many different competing interests. In this context our ability to sell broadly the concept of open space preservation is likely to be undermined if the system is seen as having been co-opted by any of the narrowly focused interest groups. It needs to be something that lots of people feel is of direct, personal benefit.

An alternative to abstract and subjective generalizations about the current status of environmental resources and the quality of visitor opportunities is the solicitation, evaluation, revision, and, where appropriate, implementation of specific proposals for improving the system in ways which sensibly balance and advance both environmental and visitor interests. This suggests that the finished Visitor Plan should incorporate long-term process through which organized stakeholder groups and everyday citizens become involved in a continuing process of system incremental policy refinements.

There are a number of widespread human activities which reflect human desires to connect with the natural world that are commonly overlooked or even condemned by the mainstream environmental movement. These include, for example, the deep connections that people to develop with domestic animals -- dogs, cats, and horses, for example. There is also the role that gardening plays in the lives of people who have lost the agricultural connections which are so central to human history. Beyond this is the human drive to engage in adventurous activities with intense physical exertion. These activities resonate with our evolutionary history in ways which passive theme parks, movie theaters, and computer games can't hope to duplicate. Rather than pushing people away from such activities, environmentalists should be encouraging them.

Anyone involved in a public policy making process needs to be clear about the distinction between fact finding and the making of value judgments . All policy making ultimately boils down to choices between alternative courses of action. These choices are ultimately based upon fact-finding predictions of the likely consequences of each alternative under consideration. While the most reliable fact-finding efforts tend to be based upon well-funded and well-executed scientific research there are also "other ways of knowing" (generally based upon deep personal experience and thoughtful, honest reflection) that can fill in many of the inevitable gaps and expensive, scientific research. Fact-finding also has its limits. Even the best research is unlikely to eliminate important risks and uncertainties. The world is simply too complex and chaotic and fact finding resources are inevitably limited.

By contrast, value judgments are based on subjective, public assessments of the desirability of alternative policies. They involve a choice between alternative futures and the policies designed to bring them about. In cases where significant uncertainties remain about the likely consequences of alternative policies, value judgments must also be made regarding the level of acceptable risk. These value judgments are not and should not be the province of technical experts. Rather, they should result from the collective moral judgments of affected constituencies.