Turning National Parks into Corporate Profit Centers

[Judi Lynn]

September 4, 2015
Turning National Parks into Corporate Profit Centers

by Pete Dolack

Given the corporatization of ever more commons, we may yet be visiting Golden Arches National Park or Disneyland Dinosaur National Monument. Even if the most extreme right-wing plans to auction off public lands don’t ever come to fruition, ongoing neglect can only promise creeping corporate colonization of the United States National Park system.

Commercialization is still relatively minimal in national parks, but worrying signs are there. Infrastructure improvements in Glacier National Park in Montana, for example, have been accomplished through funds raised by the Glacier National Park Conservancy, which gets much of its funding through “business partners.” The list of businesses are mostly local and likely are motivated by a desire to maintain the park so as not to damage a tourism-dependent local economy. Such a motivation is not unreasonable, but if the underfunding of parks like Glacier gets more severe, the temptation of such private conservatories to reach out to bigger and more powerful national corporations is not likely to be avoided.

Giant corporations are likely to see “donations” to parks as a marketing ploy. Will we begin to see corporate logos in the parks? Outright corporate sponsorship of parks, in the manner of sports stadiums? Will the parks be expected to show a profit? This may sound outlandish, but we are talking about the United States here: A country in which governments ask for advertising dollars and borrow money rather than taxing corporations or the wealthy, and where pervasive corporate ideology insists that “private enterprise” runs everything better.

The idea that a park should generate a profit actually already exists. In New York City, the Brooklyn Bridge Park along the waterfront near downtown Brooklyn actually is expected to be profitable. This is not a joke: A high-rise luxury condominium building is being built inside the park to pay for its maintenance.

More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/09/04/turning-national-parks-into-corporate-profit-centers/

[Red Oak]

1. To camp at a National Park you MUST pay a corporation

Look up ReserveAmerica, owned by ACTIVE NETWORK, LLC. which in turn is owned by Vista Equity Partners. Darko Dejanovic is the CEO of ACTIVE NETWORK, LLC . The company is currently located in Dallas, TX.

In my part of the country, even in the off season when campsites are "free" one must get a $10 reservation from this corporation in order to stay in the "National" parks. I believe this to be the case for all National parks. One must always pay the $10 fee and it is no longer allowed to get a paper reservation at the park. ALL reservations must go through the corporation. The corporation must be given its due.

I find this disgusting.

[Exultant Democracy]

3. This is not true. I do a ton of backpack and camping been to 9

National parks this season alone. Yellowstone Yosemite and Grand Tetons all had vendors to handle car camping but none for backpacking sites. The other six parks all had either no fees (water wasn't on yet) or fees paid to the park service for camping.

[fasttense]

2. Well Dolly makes millions off of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park

You get to drive past her huge amusement park and hundreds of other crappy little tourist traps like it before you get to the park. Though Gatlinburg was a tourist town sucking up the money of the people come to visit the park long before Dolly ever thought to take advantage of the visitors. So it was ripe for the picking. And Dolly knows how to make money.

So you don't really need to own the park to make millions off the visitors.