美国国家公共电台 NPR On Public Lands, Visitors Surge While Federal Management Funds Decline

 

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

Western towns surrounded by federal public lands are in a serious bind². They're seeing a huge surge in visitors coming to play in the mountains and forests surrounding them, which is leading to an economic boom. But federal funding to manage that land is drying up. NPR's Kirk Siegler reports some tourist-dependent towns are having to get creative.

KIRK SIEGLER, BYLINE³: It's boom times in Mammoth⁴ Lakes, Calif. - a winter of record snowfall.

DONOVAN SLIMAN: Come on this way, girls.

SIEGLER: Donovan Sliman and his two daughters, Nava and Grace, are lumbering⁵ up a snowy trail where the condos give way to national forest.

SLIMAN: I like to get away from everybody else (laughter). I like to hear the sound of the wind and the snow through the trees.

GRACE: We're also probably going to play out in the snow and go sledding.

SIEGLER: Mammoth is completely surrounded by either protected federal wilderness⁶ or public Forest Service land, which its ski resort operates on via a federal lease.

SLIMAN: Enjoy your public lands.

SIEGLER: And there are more people than ever before doing just that. California's eastern Sierra region - about the size of Massachusetts - only has about 50,000 residents. But every year, more than 2 million visitors are now descending⁷ here to camp, hike, fish, hunt and ski.

MEGAN LAWSON: There are these dramatic increases in recreational use of public lands.

SIEGLER: Megan Lawson is tracking the recreation boom at the nonprofit think tank Headwaters Economics. In the last 10 years, that visitation has climbed by about 15 percent.

LAWSON: And at the same time, dramatic declines in recreation budgets.

SIEGLER: Since 2000, Forest Service recreation budgets have been cut by a third as more and more money is diverted to fight wildfires. That means less for managing wildlife, hiring rangers⁸ to patrol and protect the land and for maintenance of trails, river access and campgrounds. John Wentworth worries about a future where public lands are loved to death.

JOHN WENTWORTH: Trailheads are trashed. Bathrooms don't work. Trails aren't maintained. People are parking all over the place.

SIEGLER: A Mammoth town councilman and former mayor, Wentworth loves to show off the wild lands surrounding town. Driving, he points out his favorite backcountry ski line up on some glades⁹.

WENTWORTH: That little strip of white that goes through the rocks...

SIEGLER: Mmm hmm.

WENTWORTH: That's called Rock Chute.

SIEGLER: A few minutes later, he's stopping his truck at a dead-end road.

WENTWORTH: Here's one of my favorite places to come. I can park right there. It's two minutes from my house.

SIEGLER: It's a popular U.S. Forest Service trailhead that Wentworth says was getting pretty lawless at peak times until his town stepped in.

WENTWORTH: This winter, we've had - the last month...

SIEGLER: They got voters to approve a tax hike to pay for maintenance and staffing at gateways¹⁰ to federal public lands. They put up big informational signs laying out the rules here. There's even a doggy bag bin¹ - all stuff the U.S. government would have paid for in another era.

WENTWORTH: It's discouraging and a little frightening to see that federal presence go away. But on the other hand, there are real opportunities for better management if it's more localized.

SIEGLER: This was the theme of a summit Wentworth organized here recently, drawing leaders and outdoor recreation business owners from around the West.

(LAUGHTER)

SIEGLER: They strategized about coping with budget cuts and swapped¹¹ success stories. Vail, Colo., is paying salaries for extra federal rangers to staff a crowded hiking trail. Volunteers are doing wildlife counts in Montana to help overworked scientists. In California, private money is building new mountain bike trails on public land.

ALLEN PIETRESANTA: We are the envy of people in the world for our public lands.

SIEGLER: Allen Pietresanta heads the Sierra Business Council, which is helping¹² struggling towns transition into outdoor recreation-based economies. This is an increasingly lucrative¹³ business in the rural West.

PIETRESANTA: We're looking to keep the public in public lands and looking at creative and new ways to help manage them and keep them healthy and vibrant¹⁴.

SIEGLER: Folks here said they're tired of all the hand-wringing and waiting for solutions from Washington, so they're doing what they can locally for now. People are coming to America's public lands by the millions, says John Wentworth.

WENTWORTH: They love it. It's free. It's their legacy¹⁵. And they're showing up. We've got to be ready for them.

SIEGLER: Kirk Siegler, NPR News, Mammoth Lakes, Calif.

1 bin   

n.箱柜；vt.放入箱内；[计算机] DOS文件名:二进制目标文件

参考例句：

• He emptied several bags of rice into a bin.他把几袋米倒进大箱里。
• He threw the empty bottles in the bin.他把空瓶子扔进垃圾箱。

2 bind   

vt.捆，包扎；装订；约束；使凝固；vi.变硬

参考例句：

• I will let the waiter bind up the parcel for you.我让服务生帮你把包裹包起来。
• He wants a shirt that does not bind him.他要一件不使他觉得过紧的衬衫。

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 mammoth   

n.长毛象；adj.长毛象似的，巨大的

参考例句：

• You can only undertake mammoth changes if the finances are there.资金到位的情况下方可进行重大变革。
• Building the new railroad will be a mammoth job.修建那条新铁路将是一项巨大工程。

5 lumbering   

n.采伐林木

参考例句：

• Lumbering and, later, paper-making were carried out in smaller cities. 木材业和后来的造纸都由较小的城市经营。
• Lumbering is very important in some underdeveloped countries. 在一些不发达的国家，伐木业十分重要。

6 wilderness   

n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠

参考例句：

• She drove the herd of cattle through the wilderness.她赶着牛群穿过荒野。
• Education in the wilderness is not a matter of monetary means.荒凉地区的教育不是钱财问题。

7 descending   

n. 下行 adj. 下降的

参考例句：

• The results are expressed in descending numerical order . 结果按数字降序列出。
• The climbers stopped to orient themselves before descending the mountain. 登山者先停下来确定所在的位置，然后再下山。

8 rangers   

护林者( ranger的名词复数 )； 突击队员

参考例句：

• Do you know where the Rangers Stadium is? 你知道Rangers体育场在哪吗？ 来自超越目标英语 第3册
• Now I'm a Rangers' fan, so I like to be near the stadium. 现在我是Rangers的爱好者，所以我想离体育场近一点。 来自超越目标英语 第3册

9 glades   

n.林中空地( glade的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Maggie and Philip had been meeting secretly in the glades near the mill. 玛吉和菲利曾经常在磨坊附近的林中空地幽会。 来自辞典例句
• Still the outlaw band throve in Sherwood, and hunted the deer in its glades. 当他在沉思中变老了，世界还是照样走它的路，亡命之徒仍然在修武德日渐壮大，在空地里猎鹿。 来自互联网

10 gateways   

n.网关( gateway的名词复数 )；门径；方法；大门口

参考例句：

• Police bullets raked the gateways car. 警察的子弹对着门口的汽车扫射。 来自辞典例句
• No Internet gateways are needed for the programs operation. 该软件的操作不需要互联网网关的支持。 来自互联网

11 swapped   

交换（工作）( swap的过去式和过去分词 )； 用…替换，把…换成，掉换（过来）

参考例句：

• I liked her coat and she liked mine, so we swapped. 我喜欢她的外套，她喜欢我的外套，于是我们就交换了。
• At half-time the manager swapped some of the players around. 经理在半场时把几名队员换下了场。

12 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

13 lucrative   

adj.赚钱的，可获利的

参考例句：

• He decided to turn his hobby into a lucrative sideline.他决定把自己的爱好变成赚钱的副业。
• It was not a lucrative profession.那是一个没有多少油水的职业。

14 vibrant   

adj.震颤的，响亮的，充满活力的，精力充沛的，(色彩)鲜明的

参考例句：

• He always uses vibrant colours in his paintings. 他在画中总是使用鲜明的色彩。
• She gave a vibrant performance in the leading role in the school play.她在学校表演中生气盎然地扮演了主角。

15 legacy   

n.遗产，遗赠；先人(或过去)留下的东西

参考例句：

• They are the most precious cultural legacy our forefathers left.它们是我们祖先留下来的最宝贵的文化遗产。
• He thinks the legacy is a gift from the Gods.他认为这笔遗产是天赐之物。