The Rich Hole Wilderness

Tetra: An Element of the Rich Hole Wilderness Unit of Lasting Forests

The following letter and attachmment about a parkland concept was sent to a Virginia State legislator in 1998. It presents a notion of unified management and use of available lands and privitization of forest, wildlife, and park land.

Dear Mr. :

The enclosed concept is a "free" document for you and your Joint Subcommittee Studying the Future of Virginia's Environment. It is not really free because the taxpayers of Virginia and the nation have paid me well for 30 years as I worked in the College of Forestry and Wildlife Resources at Virginia Tech. I've been doing what your Subcommittee is doing. I've been studying and preaching to a small congregation of students about how to plan and get an acceptable future environment of Virginia. I retired June 1, 1998 but my enthusiasm for the future environment remains high - for selfish reasons, but also for my daughters and three grandchildren.

I understand that a key interest of the Subcommittee is the funding base for the park system and I provide a concept for this in the Tetra Strategy --a modern, comprehensive strategy for cost-effective park system development and management. The Tetra Strategy makes the most sense within a larger concept, that of the mandate of the Subcommittee and the R* System in which the Tetra Strategy is nested.

My last graduate student, Mr. David Morton, has just completed a map of the land cover of Virginia using satellite images (enclosed). It has been an enormous job and I'm proud of him. Besides having pride, we are one of the first states to have this recent information. It, along with new data systems and computer advances, can be used to help achieve your Subcommittee objectives for the parklands as well as other parts of the environment.

These concepts are yours to do with as you please. I have not sent them to other members of the subcommittee. I shall be glad to advise, assist, and supply more information and suggestions for specific legislative action. I do not need "authorship" or acknowledgement; I only want these ideas to get into practice. Frankly, they are the only alternative I see that gives me much hope for sustaining (but more importantly improving) the parkland environment of Virginia. After Virginia, we only have left the rest of the world!

I'll be pleased to discuss any of these topics (call anytime 540-552-8672 or RHGILES@vt.edu). I walk the fence fearing to provide you or the committee too much written material - or too little for such an important concept. I'll appreciate your advice and will try to be responsive.

Sincerely yours,

The Tetra Strategy

Stable Funding for the Commonwealth of Virginia State Park System

The Tetra Strategy is a unified action concept for the state park system, parklands, and citizen benefits from Virginia's parklands for the future. It is based on a set of premises about the future that include:

• A highly urban population.
• A human population with limited information about the outdoors and parks.
• Expanding use of parklands.
• Continuing need and desire for outdoor and historical experiences and knowledge.
• Limits to fossil energy (for parkland users as well as managers). Severely limited support for increases in taxes or agency structure.

To provide meaning to the above and to meet the needs of future people, a comprehensive plan, philosophy, and set of tactics is needed. It is called the Tetra Strategy, symbolizing the four main, highly related components:

• Acquisition
• Enforcement
• Management
• Users

These components of a parkland system, like other aspects of environmental systems, only make sense when dealt with together. Over-emphasizing one can lead to losses and instability. Details can be provided, but herein is provided only a brief outline of the components of the strategy.

Acquisition

One premise of the strategy is that citizens do not know what a rich system they now have. Much of the land and water is inaccessible. Access is as important as ownership. Lands now "held" or in easements cannot be adequately surveyed and regularly inspected for protection. Until that can be done, rapid acquisition by purchases seems infeasible and even harmful to the available resources.

Acquisition is needed, however, and an opportunistic stance can be maintained. Land donations (for tax benefits) now made by Virginians to interests outside the state are unacceptable and a new vigorous strategy to inform citizens of alternatives is needed. Acquisitions are needed for biodiversity. Select plant and animals communities have been (or are being) identified.

Access (across private land; bridges, etc.) to existing parkland is likely to make thousands of acres available at relatively low cost.

Long tern leases or rent of small units of state forests and state wildlife areas can be made. Lands can be retained by the present agencies but dedicated to parkland objectives and management style. There are many areas within these public lands that have a parkland character. They can be "claimed" as parkland, add to the public resource, but also be maintained on agency rosters as being for their clientele. Parklike wildlife areas (purchased primarily by hunter-based tax funds) can be "rented" part-time during non-hunting periods for the parkland system. The emphasis should be on parkland acres, those of special quality, not just on "parks."

Active promotion of the areas and opportunities we now have (including local and federal areas) and emphasizing parkland (without the legalese associated with types - that the public does not understand and does not care to understand) may do far more that buying another 50,000 acres. The working political equation is not for numbers of parks but for used acres:

Known Parkland Resource Supplied by the Legislature = People x Acres

We need to create a program to allow people to "buy" nominal ownership (at random) of each 10 meter x 10 meter area (about 0.02 acres; the 10-yard line of the football field and a little more, square) of existing park land. These are called Alpha units and a vast amount is now known about each such unit. For a "contribution", families may gain a sense of real ownership in land. They would get a report on "their" land and may one day try to visit it (or pay a guide to show them). The funds would go into an acquisition fund, invested, with interests used in direct acquisition. This is artificial ownership and a unique tactic to gain contributions for land acquisition.

Penalties in court cases involving any aspect of parkland resources could be directed to be paid into the parkland funds of the Tetra Strategy, partially to the acquisition fund.

In select parks with massive stone faces, people may pay to have a small bronze memorial plaque installed to honor a deceased family member. The funds would be use for parkland acquisition. The Memorial Group can provide other means of honoring people such as through facilities and by publications about park animals, plants, geology, or ecological communities.

Partial membership fees in Nature Folks, Wildland Walkers, the Wildland Crew, and Dogwood Travelers (to be discussed below) would be dedicated to the acquisition fund.

Acquisition Summary:

1. Increased knowledge of what the Commonwealth has in parkland resources - the "glass is half full"
2. Opportunistic acquisition
3. Leases of private park-like lands, camps, lodges
4. Dedicated limited uses of parklands now held for citizens by other agencies
5. Sources of acquisition funds (gross, conservative estimates for 5 years):
   

   Purchase of Alpha Units	$10,000,000
   Penalties, fines, etc.	5,000,000
   Memorials	10,000,000
   Membership fees (partials)	1,000,000
   Total	26,000,000

Management

Few people appreciate that to buy land is to buy long-term costs and maintenance needs. The costs are high, thus the Tetra Strategy includes making this principle well known in parkland information. The strategy proposed is to limit acquisition until an appropriate computed maintenance level is reached. The strategy includes:

1. Membership fees in Nature Folks, part of which are dedicated to maintenance
2. Membership with voluntary service work required in parks to reach levels of membership within the group
3. A supervised program with the Courts of Virginia for constructive, well-directed work with non-violent criminals and for people assigned to do community service
4. A pseudo-private trail building and maintenance crew (the Stoneworms) that works the parklands but also does contract work on private lands. The "profits" made are directed to parkland maintenance
5. A for-fee expert fire fighting crew (equivalent to the western "hot shot" crews) that train and are ready for effective attacks of parkland fires but are available for contract work within the region. They also serve in trail maintenance, security, safety and enforcement patrols, and demonstrations. This unit also addresses the unique needs of fire ecology in parklands and operates a modern computer simulation and fire control center.
6. The Wildland Crew is an adult camp for people who want to do constructive work, engage in meaningful exercise, and become re-attached to their roots and engage in novel new social and environmental experiences. They learn safety and other parkland knowledge, build trail, bridges, camps, stop erosion, improve streams...and enjoy it...and pay a camp fee that is used for parkland maintenance.
7. The Project Crew is similar to the above but is a bunch of "weekend warriors", working only for 2 days. They "crash in" on small, important projects.
8. A legislative initiative allows tax benefits for Virginia companies that provide materials or services to meet parkland needs.
9. Select projects when fully funded by a company or organization may have a tasteful, standard sign displaying the company name at the site (campsite, bridge, trail segment, bench, overlook).
10. User fees, especially for historic sites, seem essential, given the present state of the parklands. Collection fees are high; a general membership card or car-tag seems needed to reduce this cost in the parklands.
11. The operation of the state parklands should be by a not-for-profit private organization with education and enforcement remaining in the public sector.

A description of a Safety and Security system for the parklands and surrounding neighbors and rural landowners is available. A document describing a systems approach to wildland law enforcement is also available. The staff of the parks is now actively involved in enforcement, but more is needed and society seems to be changing to increase the workload. Such enforcement will reduce losses and increase resource awareness, reduce maintenance costs, and open new relations with adjacent landowners and parkland users. New relations with the courts are needed. Parkland violations are often treated as trivial in a very busy court system. Needs exist for hearing officers, rapid disposal of "cases", new information on the costs of violations to the public, and new access to community service as a reasonable "fine" for certain types of violations.

A special force is needed, one like the U.S. Army Rangers. It is an expert wildland group, does public relations work, displays tactics, announces convictions, "appears" magically as a threat to those who violate parklands, and does emergency and rescue work. This group works actively with Nature Folks, Wildland Walkers, the Wildland Crew, and with Dogwood Travelers and the public schools to prevent violations. (Ignorance of parkland regulations, rules, and law is now a major problem among the urban population.) New exciting activities are part of the prevention program (since many vandals report lack of things to do and no excitement to be motivations for their aberrant behavior.)

Users

Parklands are viewed as resources and thus acquired for many uses and benefits for a wide variety of people. Some types of use prevent the full potential benefits of other uses from being experienced. Computer aids now exist to help in this difficult balancing act. Nevertheless, there are several action elements of the Tetra Strategy that can be implemented that minimize the conflicts and increase use and financial support for the new parklands of the Commonwealth for the future. An older-aged population is not likely to support actively parklands because of their limited and decreasing use (exceptional active older people do not deny the premise). When the gasoline lines are long, extensive trips will be rare, stays after long trips will be longer, and exceptional experiences will be desired.

There is a need for five major user groups:

1. Stoneworms - a rugged trail building crew building beautiful sensitive-to-the-land trails that open areas for year-around use and enjoyment. Well trained to create superior trails on public lands, the crew may provide similar service under contract for private lands. Access by foot, horse, or bike is for the low-fossil-energy future for increasing, low-cost-of-maintenance users.
2. Avi - a new sport of birdwatching (somewhat like "golf") played on select, intensively managed park areas (documents available).
3. Writers Camps - using existing park facilities year-around and using rented summer camps and lodges, a novel program of services and experiences is developed. This is a special user group and others can be developed. Writers are encouraged to assist in making the parklands better known, better used, and fully appreciated.
4. Nature Folks - a new group, this becomes a large membership, primarily for Virginians. Somewhat like the Audubon Society, it is composed of nature enthusiasts, has extensive web-site use, is especially interested in the timing of ecological events (blooming of flowers, migration of geese, etc.) It conducts outings, expeditions, conferences and tours. "Profits" are made from memberships, publications, art, conferences, and tours.
5. Dogwood Travelers - this is a tour service (as available in many travel service centers) devoted to catered tours for groups to select parklands of Virginia. It has the unique dimension of tours in other areas of the U.S. and international tours, all nature and parkland related. Visitors to Virginia areas are led to novel or exciting opportunities in other countries. An effort is made to create lasting relationships and personal linkages to parklands. The service is profit oriented but the "profits" are to enhance the parklands of Virginia. Correspondence is underway with former Virginia Tech students for opportunities in Belize, Nepal, Senegal, China, Egypt, India, and Nigeria. Specialty tours over many years to seeing the deer of the world or the owls of China have been sketched. Special groups of the Nature Folks concentrate on owls, coyotes, the wild turkey, and butterflies and these are developed into local, regional, national, and international tours. Also included are trips to international Avi courses.

The Bottom Line

The existing park agency needs to retain its role of ownership, enforcement, and education. A new privatized group should be formed to implement the Tetra Strategy. There are few new elements of the strategy but all of the elements need to be used together in a new economic and political environment. Selecting one or two components of the strategy will not serve well. They need to be created all at once to get the multiplying or synergistic effects of unified, incentive-driven work. The strategy outlined retains the character of the parklands, enhances and improves the parks, allows cautious acquisition, expands the opportunities from official "parks" to a variety of "parklands", and creates an exciting political environment of new park programs, enhanced biodiversity and sustained ecological systems, and new employment - all at reduced costs to the taxpayer - for the foreseeable future.

This Web site is maintained by R. H. Giles, Jr.
Last revision January 17, 2000.