TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/011491/0114330.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 5.4 KB | 113 lines

                                                                                ENVIRONMENT, Page 46

Fighting for Yosemite's Future


A Japanese takeover of the park's concessions stirs a debate
over who should reap profits from America's natural treasures

By JEANNE MCDOWELL/LOS ANGELES


    Few vacation spots can match Yosemite National Park's rare
combination of wild beauty and civilized comfort. At the
Ahwahnee Hotel, guests book reservations a year in advance to
watch the alpenglow off the majestic Half Dome from cozy rooms
equipped with TVs and minibars. When not ice skating, skiing
or hiking through the mountain slopes clad with ponderosa
pines, visitors can patronize a pizza parlor, a gourmet deli,
a one-hour photo service, an automatic bank teller and, of
course, a gift shop full of coffee mugs and T-shirts with the
Yosemite logo.

    Is the commercialism encroaching on the nation's wild lands
a good thing? If it is, who should reap the profits? Those
issues gained new urgency last week, when Matsushita, the
Japanese electronics giant, took control of MCA, the
California-based entertainment conglomerate. MCA -- and now
Matsushita -- owns the Yosemite Park and Curry Co., which
operates the park's lodging facilities, restaurants, shops and
services. In 1989 those concessions generated about $78 million
in sales and an estimated $14 million to $17 million in
profits. But under its sweetheart contract with the National
Park Service, the company had to pay the government only
$635,000. Such a huge  private profit from a national resource
is questionable enough, but the possibility that the money
might flow to Japan is doubly troubling to many Americans.

    Eager to avoid criticism, Matsushita offered to sell the
park-concession company to a U.S. firm within a year. But that
pledge was not enough to satisfy Interior Secretary Manuel
Lujan Jr., whose department includes the Park Service. Lujan
threatened to cancel the Yosemite company's contract, which
still has two years to run, on the ground that MCA and
Matsushita did not get government permission to change the
management of the concessions. The Interior Secretary appears
to be playing rough in an effort to persuade Matsushita to
donate the park company to the government or to sell the
operation to a nonprofit group at a below-market price.

    The dispute over Yosemite's profits throws a spotlight on
a problem all too common in the biggest national parks. The
Park Service has been lax in monitoring the concessioner
contracts and ensuring that the government gets a fair share
of the income. According to an Interior Department report, the
concessioners reaped revenues of $500 million in 1988 but paid
the government only $12.5 million in franchise fees.
Environmentalists view the sale of the Yosemite company as an
opportunity to revamp the process and shift the management
philosophy of the parks away from excessive commercialism. "The
parks should be the environmental reservoirs of the world,
places we populate with songbirds and other species," says Paul
Pritchard, president of the National Parks and Conservation
Association. "They are not there to provide more accommodations
for visitors and more tourism dollars."

    Though the concessions in 80% of the parks are mom-and-pop
operations, the Yosemite company is not the only Park Service
contractor reaping hefty revenues. TW Recreational Services
rang up $49 million at Yellowstone in 1989, and Amfac Resorts,
which runs the south rim of the Grand Canyon, pulled in $23
million. Such firms contend that their size and financial
strength have helped to make the parks more attractive places.

    "One of the reasons national parks are liked so much is that
they have the greatest visitor facilities because the private
sector has put money in," says Rex Maughan, chairman of the
Conference of National Park Concessioners. "If we go to another
system and the government gets involved, we will see the
degradation of our national parks."

    Theoretically, the Park Service has the power to approve
everything from the rate of return on a contract to hotel-room
decor. Over the years, though, the concessioners have become
a powerful lobby in Washington, and the Park Service a
pushover. "[The concessioners] are to parks what the defense
industry is to the military," says Pritchard. In 1989, for
example, Edward Hardy, president of the Yosemite Park and Curry
Co., won $1.5 million in congressional appropriations for a new
concessioner-employee dormitory at a time when Yosemite's $13.9
million budget was stretched to the limit.

    Hardy and former California Congressman Tony Coelho are
reportedly teaming up in an effort to buy the company from
Matsushita. But there will be other bidders. A coalition of
preservationists has formed the Yosemite Restoration Trust, a
nonprofit organization that aims to buy the concessioner and
put into effect a 1980 federal plan for reducing commercialism
at the park.

     The group would be hard-pressed to hold back the crush of
tourism. During the peak summer months, 7,000 visitors a day
transform Yosemite Valley into an urbanized village of noisy
bumper-to-bumper traffic and bicycle jams. To many nature
lovers, the land that pioneering preservationist John Muir
extolled for its "spiritual glow" and "sublime mountain beauty"
has already been irreversibly damaged.