Policy Dilemma in National Parks: A Case Study of Glacier Bay

By Rick S. Kurtz
For nearly 100 years the National Park Service has been caught between competing policy mandates; to provide for the utilization—principally visitor enjoyment—of park resources while also assuring that resources are preserved for future generations.  This paper provides a case study of utilization - preservation confrontations that have plagued Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve.  It highlights lessons that can be learned about the underlying causes of such policy confrontations, their relevance to federal public lands management, and the subsequent impact upon adjacent gateway communities.
 

Collaborative Management in Gateway Communities
By Kurt D. Cline
This paper analyzes the collaborative management strategy of a type of city known as “gateway communities.”  Specifically, do they design and implement economic development policy using a jurisdiction-based management approach?  What are the implications of this for economic development and natural resource policy?  What are the implications of this for cooperative intergovernmental and intersectoral relationships?  The findings of this study suggest that the experience of gateway communities with jurisdiction-based management have produced ‘cooperative collaboration’ with both vertical and horizontal partners.  Most respondents see private sector actors such as the chamber of commerce, visitor bureau, and local development authorities as partners and actively cooperate with them.  Furthermore, most respondents feel their relationships with public land agencies (national and state) are good to outstanding.  Thus, high levels of collaboration, at least in this instance, are positively linked with perceptions of cooperative working relationships.
 

The Impacts of Mission Change in the U.S. Forest Service on Gateway Communities
By William M. Salka
This study will examine the degree to which gateway communities, defined as towns under 15,000 in population whose close proximity to public lands has produced economic ties to those lands, have been able to adapt to changing National Forest management policies, shifting from a dependence on commodity extraction industries to tourism and recreation.  Given their historic link to tourism and recreation, we would expect gateway communities to be best suited to adapt as the USFS shifts its emphasis from commodity production to resource preservation. Thus, the study will examine how these communities have fared given changing management of National Forests.

The Federal Concessioner System:  Linking Policy To Opportunities For Local Service Providers
By Rick S. Kurtz
Every year millions of tourists hit the open road to enjoy America’s public recreation lands.  Upon arrival at their destination visitors enjoy a host of service amenities ranging from hotels and lodges, to ski resorts, and back country adventures all complements of concessioners.  These public lands concessioner operations are a multi-billion dollar business.  This decades-long analysis finds that local service providers have generally failed to secure concessioner contracts on public lands.  A focus among more politically adept participants upon other policy priorities has eclipsed local provider preferences despite periodic opportunities for change and economic need. 

Gateway Communities, Economic Development, and Environmentalism
By Rick S. Kurtz
The economic relationship between gateway communities and the public lands they adjoin has traditionally been close. For many communities a significant portion of this relationship was based upon resources extraction. Common activities included mining, timber harvesting, and livestock grazing on public lands. These activities incorporated a web of horizontal and vertical intergovernmental relationships, as well as public-private partnerships. Public land managers provided resources extraction rights to private parties who in turn had processing facilities in nearby towns. Local residents were either directly employed in extraction processing or acted as service providers.

More restrictive public lands policy statutes adopted in recent decades contributed to the disruption of this system. Gateway communities have had to confront the challenge of shifting towards alternative economic engines. Other considerations have included the need to reconsider and adapt past intergovernmental and private partnerships to suit current circumstances. These considerations raise some basic questions that guide this analysis. First, what impact has the adoption of more environmentally sensitive public land management policies had upon gateway economies? Second, what economic development policy vision have local communities adopted in response to these new realities? Finally, what role has shifts in intergovernmental relationships, and public-private partnerships played in this economic development transformation? This analysis provides a framework addressing these basic questions.

Economic Development in Gateway Communities of Northern Michigan
By Megan M. Greening
Gateway communities in Northern Michigan are all too familiar with the economic travails related to tourism. The abundance of public waters as well as large parcels of federal and state public recreational lands makes Michigan a major tourism destination. Many gateway communities today survive primarily on dollars generated from the rush of seasonal visitors. In contrast, these communities often relied on some form of industry in the past to fuel the economy. Today they face the dilemma of trying to redefine their economies. 
By examining four Northern Michigan communities it will be shown that in order to change it is important to adopt not only different economic policies, but also to adjust the mindset and reach consensus among community members. It is also important to understand what has been done in prior years and examine what has worked as well as what has not in order to make appropriate decisions concerning the future direction of local economic development policy.

Public Lands Policy & Economic Trends in Gateway Communities
By Rick S. Kurtz
The past 40 years has witnessed the acceleration of public lands protection policies begun some 100 years ago.  Resources conservation, multiple use mandates, and in recent decades environmental protection, have come to the forefront of the public lands policy lexicon.  Numerous studies suggest these policy changes—predominantly federal and to a lesser degree state—have had a significant impact upon resources extraction on public lands.  These studies have been heavily weighted towards analyzing the relationship between policy reforms and public land agency management practices.  Less studied has been the impact of this policy transition upon communities adjacent to public lands.  This article seeks to identify the impact that changes in public lands resources protection policy over the past 40 years has had upon the economies of gateway communities. 

Evidence presented in this analysis suggests that gateway community economies have become less dependent on resources extraction.  Changes in public land protection policies have played a role.  However, several other factors have influenced the shift away from resources extraction.  Also, there is the question over what economic engine(s) has stepped in to fill the resources extraction void?  For most gateway communities it appears that the answer has been recreational tourism.  The implications of this shift are explored.