Ever since Defenders of Wildlife, the National Audubon Society, and the Southern Environmental Law Center took aim on the National Park Service for not have an off-road vehicle management plan, the groups have managed to get their message out masterfully.
You?ve got to admire these folks. They?re well funded, and it shows. Their public information campaign of press releases and wildlife alerts stay on message and hammer that message home to all who will listen month after month, year after year.
The spin they put on their role in saving wildlife at the Cape Hatteras National Seashore should be the envy of any political consultant in this Presidential campaign year.
It isn?t that their message contains untruths. Mostly, the problem is that they contain partial truths.
There are a couple of recent examples of how the environmental groups present their spin, making the same points they have made over and over since the consent decree settled a lawsuit by the groups against the Park Service.
One is an SELC press release from March 13 announcing that a federal judge in Washington, D.C., granted the request of the environmental groups to intervene in the Cape Hatteras Access Preservation Alliance?s lawsuit against the Park Service over the final ORV plan and regulation.
Another is a letter from Jason Rylander, senior staff attorney for Defenders of Wildlife, urging supporters to contact their congressmen to oppose a bill that U.S. Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., has introduced to overturn the consent decree and the final rule and return the seashore to management under the 2007 Interim Protected Species Management Strategy and Environmental Assessment.
Here a few examples of misstatements or partial truths from those two documents ? ones that have been mentioned in dozens of other release and alerts to members in the past four or five years.
The ?impact of unrestricted ORV use has taken its toll on the habitat that seabirds and sea turtles rely on.? Not true. There has not been unrestricted ORV use at the seashore in more than three decades ? since the Park Service?s first attempt at an ORV plan was sent to Washington and then disappeared. Since at least the late 1970s, there have been closures for nesting shorebirds, ORV trails, ramps, etc.
The consent decree that limits ORV use near protected wildlife nesting areas has been working. Partly true. Not mentioned is the fact that the consent decree also limits pedestrian access near nesting areas.
Jones? bill wants to see the seashore open to ORVs with little regulation and that it undermines the 1972 executive order that requires the seashore to have an ORV plan. Not true. The Jones bill would return the management of the seashore to the publically vetted Interim Protected Species Management Strategy and Environmental Assessment until the Park Service can devise an ORV plan and rule that restores reasonable access.
The environmental groups say that the final rule allows ORV access on the ?majority? of the seashore. This is partly true. But in practice, ORVs can access the majority of the seashore only from late summer until early spring, outside of the shorebird nesting season.
The environmental groups like to note how much the consent decree and final rule have enhanced pedestrian experience at the seashore. Maybe partly true. From mid-March until late summer, large stretches of beaches are closed to pedestrians also.
The groups like to note that this is an ORV issue. It is not. Pedestrians are shut out also by large buffers around nesting birds. It is an access issue for ALL visitors to the seashore.
While the consent decree was in place, tourism grew and flourished in Dare County. Partly true. Sales and occupancy tax numbers were up in the county as a whole, but not in most villages on Hatteras Island. It was on the beaches north of Oregon Inlet where most of the growth in revenue has been seen.
The nesting success of birds and turtles has increased, rebounded, been a success, been amazing and phenomenal or whatever. Well, maybe. Sea turtle nesting has increased up and down the southeast coast in the years since the consent decree was implemented. And the nesting success of the birds has shown some improvement in the past few years, but it is much too early to say it is caused by the increased restrictions of the consent decree and final rule.
Many, including some in the media, take all the rosy news about what the environmental groups have done for the seashore at face value, seldom digging for the facts.
Now, Ginny Luizer of Frisco has taken another look at the picture painted by the environmental groups of the success of the consent decree and its more restrictive management policies.
Ginny also comes to the beach access issue with a point of view. She is a passionate and outspoken advocate for more reasonable beach access ? for all, drivers and pedestrians ? and she is a frequent critic of Park Service policies on the seashore. However, she also believes in reasonable protections for birds and turtles.
In the document that follows, she takes a different approach to examine the costs and benefits of the consent decree and its effects on nesting shorebirds and park visitation. Her work is reasoned and her facts are documented.
I think you will find it interesting, so I am turning this blog over to our guest blogger, Ginny Luizer.
