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Column from June 29, 2001 – Peninsula Daily News Robin Hill: public farm, many usesBy Martha M. Ireland Robin Hill Farm is the newest park on our North Olympic Peninsula. We rode horses to its opening ceremonies Tuesday evening—Ann Beam on her bombproof sorrel, Higher Ground, and I on my young buckskin, MI Dusti Muscat. When I was a county commissioner in 1997, I played a major role in Clallam County’s acquisition of this 155-acre woodland west of Carlsborg. As a private citizen, I am now one of many volunteers happily carrying out the vision of a different way of providing parks. Objections to federal and state recreational use fees made headlines on the day Robin Hill opened. By contrast, Robin Hill is a prototype for making public recreation areas affordable for users and taxpayers. No use fees are anticipated at Robin Hill, but users must accept responsibilities if the self-serve park is to succeed. For example, there are no trash receptacles at Robin Hill. Pack it in, pack it out. There is no dedicated maintenance staff. Volunteers shoulder much of the care. The northeast corner of the property is an agricultural research and demonstration site--complete with sheep--in cooperation with Washington State University Cooperative Extension. A forest management plan covers 110 acres. Expect selective timber harvest operations--but no clearcuts--from time to time, followed by replanting. These elements are designed to make Robin Hill largely self-supporting. By contrast, publicly owned forests have ceased to be self-supporting as multiple use--or even any human use--is increasingly restricted and eliminated. Timber harvest in national forests once produced a substantial profit. Under current limitations and requirements, timber sales seem to cost taxpayers more than the revenue they net. State-managed trust lands once generated generous revenue streams for schools, local roads, and public buildings. (State forests financed most of the impressive government buildings in Olympia.) Now bonds that boost your property taxes pick up the slack for schools, while our transportation system goes begging. Improved conservation of forest resources is appropriate, but the pendulum has swung too far, blurring the line between parkland and timberland. Turning vast tracts of once-working forests into idle preserves--never to be used--impoverishes the very system that should be caring for these lands. Change is also felt in our national parks. As recreation use is more tightly restricted and tourism facilities are removed, revenue trails off. Lack of funds causes neglect and environmental decline. While Washington State hotly debates day use fees, the federal system expanded user fees several years ago. We all own our public lands, but not all of us use them. Shouldn't active users pick up a share of the cost? Fee opponents say, "It's time that Congress pony up what's needed," as Mark Lawler of the Sierra Club's Cascade Chapter in Seattle was quoted in Tuesday’s PDN. However, Congress has no money except what it takes from you and me--plus, of course, what public lands earn. Ironically, the Sierra Club is a leading agitator for reducing, even eliminating, public land earnings. Locking up public lands and prohibiting profitable uses makes those lands less affordable. Thus, non-use is a clear and future threat to the health and sustainability of the very public lands which no-use advocates claim to cherish. Perhaps Robin Hill's example will lead the way to responsible multiple use of public resource lands. ### ### In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, any
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