Forest Service to Park Service

[simonov]

Hey there, since I moved to Reno in 2016, I noticed both the San Gorgonio Wilderness and most of the Angeles National Forest have been re-designated National Monuments or National Recreation Areas or some other designation moving administration from the Department of Agriculture to the Department of Interior.

I was always opposed to those initiatives since as far as I could tell all it meant was more bureaucracy and rules. National Parks in the West have far too many rules for hikers and climbers like most of the people on this forum.

So now that it has happened, have their been any noticeable changes?

I note there are a lot of (pointless, in my opinion) closures, but friends of mine from other parts of the country inform me that's become a fetish of land administrators everywhere.

[dima]

I haven't noticed any difference at all: authority figures are as absent as they have always been, and I haven't seen any new aspirational rules. Maybe there's some plan, but I doubt it.

[AW~]

There has been change..to the worse. But it hasnt been too bad because access is SAR.
I dont include Angeles/park and go in the forest service because its unique...esp SAR. The are some top notch NPS teams..so there you can get deeper access.

The forest service should be better, because the mission is the public inventory. Whereas NPS is conservation/preservation.
But they fight over funding and 'inventory' doesnt sell.

The landgrabbers are trying to change it..the outdoors industry demand that recreation is the top value over ecological/archeological/others.
The mighty 5 campaign didnt win any changes to law...the 'this is MY land, i can mess it up if I want to mess it up'..but it almost did.

But yeah, I muse about re-visiting the nanny state of Yellowstone.