HONORS 303 Geographies of Conservation-Capitalism*

Bryan R. Higgins Distinguished Service Professor of Geography and Planning

State University of New York

This document is a presentation in an Honors Class entitled Geographies of Conservation-Capitalism being taught in the spring 2016 at SUNY Plattsburgh.

*Note on references: The class had two required textbooks:

1. Nature Unbound - Conservation, Capitalism and the Future of Protected Areas, (2008)

by D. Brockington, R. Duffy & J. Igoe, Earthscan

2. Selling Yellowstone – Capitalism and the Construction of Nature, (2002) by M. Barringer, University Press of Kansas.

Some items in this presentation include extensive quotes from primary sources and are thus noted with quotation marks or are pictures found on google searches. In some cases I have noted online references. In other cases the references for quotes are not explicitly given in the document but may be easily identified by searching google with a portion of the quote. Finally, in the quote of the enabling legislation for Yellowstone from the US Congress the emphasis highlighted in this presentation is mine and not in the original.

Yellowstone as an American Empire Theme Park argument:The argument of the presentation is that Yellowstone National Park has been misrepresented as the world’s first national park (Bogd Khan Mountain park in Mongolia has been noted as an earlier case) and glorified as a nationalist treasure of nature in the United States. Taking a political ecology perspective, this presentation argues that Yellowstone is better understood as an American theme park, since the image, operation and “bottom line” of Yellowstone has actually been driven and manipulated by private tourism businesses for the past 150 years and the “Anschutz empire” in its current phase. Furthermore, the geopolitical basis of this Yellowstone theme park is a vision of the global American Empire that has been shaped by the European invasion of the Americas and the intensive involvement of the United States War Department and related geopolitical notions. This includes the usually hidden removal of American Indians, complete disregard for the significance of the pristine myth in the creation of the Yellowstone landscape, the design and construction of tourism infrastructure and tourism management policies by the US War Department as well as an amazing manipulation of what nature actually is in this American empire theme park.

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Yellowstone National ParkAn American Empire Theme Park

Key notions

Discovery doctrine (European) - the principle that the title to a new land lay with the government whose (Christian) subjects traveled and occupied the new territory.

Pristine Myth – the incorrect notion that there were few American Indians and they had minimal impact on the landscape of the Americas before European contact.

Conservation Refugees – indigenous & local peoples who have been evicted from their traditional homeland and lost land-access rights.

Privatization of nature as “national parks” – granting monopoly land-use rights to private businesses that operate, market and accumulate profit from national parks.

Political ecology – the study of social, political and economic relations that shape the environment.

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Geographical events for National Parks & Yellowstone

7,000BC-1800AD American Indians reside in and shape Yellowstone.

1778 Bogd Khan Mountain National Park established in MongoliaSee http://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/936/

1851 Fort Laramie Treaty gives Indians the right to hunt and travel in Yellowstone NP.

1872 Yellowstone founded as a “public park or pleasuring ground” by the United States government.

1882 YNPIC exclusive lease of 4,400 acres for a hotel andconcession and “so much of the timber (1.68 million feet), coal and other material within the park as may be required.”

1886 Yellowstone Park Association established and park administration transferred to the United States Department of War.

1890 First bicycle trip to Yellowstone.

1886-1918 US Army at Yellowstone including 60 buildings, 223 miles of roads, extensive tourist facilities, a “buffalo ranch,” & fish hatchery for four non-native species.

1916 National Park Service established. Original US Army land use policies adopted at Yellowstone.

2016 Yellowstone has been a private theme park business for the past 144 years.

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Discovery Doctrine and Yellowstone

John Marshal and the gap in American Indian Land Rights in the US - 1823 US Supreme Court Case

http://scholarship.shu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1169&context=shlr

Shoshoni peopleshttp://amertribes.proboards.com/thread/510

Shoshoni Men 1869

Shoshoni Women & Children5

Archeologists excavated more than 700 sites in Yellowstone and documented 10,000 years of American Indian settlement. They note the Obsidian Cliff rock of Yellowstone has been found as tools at Indian sites as far away as the Hopewell Mounds in Ohio.

Indigenous Peoples in Yellowstone were similar to other global parks In the Americas 80% of the current parks and protected areas were inhabited by indigenous peoples.

From Conservation Refugees http://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/none/conservation-refugees

“From 1900 to 1950, about 600 official protected areas were created worldwide. By 1960 there were almost 1,000. Today there are at least 110,000, with more being added every month. The total area of land now under conservation protection worldwide has doubled since 1990, when the World Parks Commission set a goal of protecting 10 percent of the planet’s surface. That goal has been exceeded, as over 20 percent of all land, a total area of 11.75 million square miles, is now under conservation protection. That’s an area greater than the entire landmass of Africa and equal to half the planet’s endowment of cultivated land. At first glance, such a degree of land conservation seems like an enormous achievement of good people doing the right thing for our planet. But the record is less impressive when the social, economic, and cultural impact on local people is considered.

About half the land selected for protection by the global conservation establishment over the past century was either occupied or regularly used by Indigenous Peoples. In the Americas that figure is over 80 percent. The most recent and rapid expansion of protected-area initiatives, however, has occurred in Africa and Asia. “

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There were two visions of the West & national parks in the United States during 19th century:

George Catlin – American Indians and the landscape

Samuel Bowles – “Switzerland of America” - with no Indians

The Yellowstone Congressional Act was less than 500 words - see the 1872 text below. The purpose was stated to be: “… a public park or pleasuring-ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people …”

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the tract of land in the Territories of Montana and Wyoming, lying near the headwaters of the Yellowstone River, and described as follows, to wit, commencing at the junction of Gardiner's river with the Yellowstone river, and running east to the meridian passing ten miles to the eastward of the most eastern point of Yellowstone lake; thence south along said meridian to the parallel of latitude passing ten miles south of the most southern point of Yellowstone lake; thence west along said parallel to the meridian passing fifteen miles west of the most western point of Madison lake; thence north along said meridian to the latitude of the junction of Yellowstone and Gardiner's rivers; thence east to the place of beginning, is hereby reserved and withdrawn from settlement, occupancy, or sale under the laws of the United States, and dedicated and set apart as a public park or pleasuring-ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people; and all persons who shall locate or settle upon or occupy the same, or any part thereof, except as hereinafter provided, shall be considered trespassers and removed therefrom. (emphasis added)

SEC 2. That said public park shall be under the exclusive control of the Secretary of the Interior, whose duty it shall be, as soon as practicable, to make and publish such rules and regulations as he may deem necessary or proper for the care and management of the same. Such regulations shall provide for the preservation, from injury or spoliation, of all timber, mineral deposits, natural curiosities, or wonders within said park, and their retention in their natural condition. The Secretary may in his discretion, grant leases for building purposes for terms not exceeding ten years, of small parcels of ground, at such places in said park as shall require the erection of buildings for the accommodation of visitors; all of the proceeds of said leases, and all other revenues that may be derived from any source connected with said park, to be expended under his direction in the management of the same, and the construction of roads and bridle-paths therein. He shall provide against the wanton destruction of the fish and game found within said park, and against their capture or destruction for the purposes of merchandise or profit. He shall also cause all persons trespassing upon the same after the passage of this act to be

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removed therefrom, and generally shall be authorized to take all such measures as shall be necessary or proper to fully carry out the objects and purposes of this act.

Yellowstone “Scientific Surveys” and Superintendents concealed and manipulated the commercial interests in their work.

The “Hayden Survey” of 1871 was a “scientific party” that justified establishing YNP that was subsidized by the Northern Pacific Railroad.

Nathaniel P Langford was appointed the first superintendent of YNP. He was an in-law of two of the major railroad owners in Minnesota.

YNP had many private concessions before and after the creation of the National Park. During the first 20 years the early concessioners brought a major change in the way visitors experienced the park – creating a marketable product “stagecoach rides, hotels and saloons” as the “Wonderland” of YNP.

The second YNP superintendent, Philetus Norris, officially removed all Indians from YNP and promulgated the “Sheepeater myth” – about how non-threatening Indians retreated to Yellowstone to escape a “changing world.”

The militarization of conservation and conservation-war refugees

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Secretary Schurz and General Sheridan

Harper’s Weekly 1878

Fort Yellowstone and the new spatial discipline of conservation

Fort Yellowstone had 60 buildings, 223 miles of roads, a buffalo ranch, a fish hatchery, dozens of backcountry cabins for 300 troops

to shape and control the landscape

More photos and details at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Yellowstone

Infantry Bicycle Corps patrols Yellowstone NP

The 25th Infantry Bicycle Corps was a unique unit of Buffalo Soldiers stationed at Fort Missoula, MT. “They rode into Northern Montana on muddy trails and toured Yellowstone on their 100-

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pound iron bicycles. As proof of their capabilities, these “Iron Riders” pedaled 1,900 miles from Ft. Missoula, across the snow-dusted Rocky Mountains and steamy Great Plains, to St. Louis. - Story of the Buffalo Soldier Bicycle Corps by G. Sorensen

Buffalo Soldiers in the 25th Infantry Bicycle Corps Yellowstone 1896

“The military protectors of Yellowstone National Park initiated the earliest efforts to harmonize necessary construction for visitor access and administration with the natural park landscape. In the course of the military administration, personnel, characteristics, and tradecraft were developed that later became the elements of a civilian ranger corps. The precedents, policies, and procedures developed at Yellowstone had an enormous and enduring impact on national parks and on the worldview of the National Park Service following its creation in 1916. In 1932, Louis C. Cramton observed that “the history of the first quarter century of Yellowstone National Park is in fact the history of the development of our present national park policies.”

From http://www.nps.gov/nhl/find/statelists/id/FortYellowstone.pdf

The construction of Yellowstone National Park highlighted ecological manipulations and the commercialization of conservation.

Backcountry patrols

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“The soldiers registered parties entering the park, sealed triggers of firearms with red tape and wax, and required that dogs were leashed. Squads of troopers patrolled the area around the soldier stations, monitoring such matters as the number of fish caught, the regulation of campfires, and visitor behavior toward natural features.”

Planning access improvements and fire suppression “Lieutenant Kingman’s focus was on improving access to the park in terms of roads and bridges. He developed a plan for a 223-mile road system that “would enable tourists to visit the principal points of interest without retracing their steps; and to take a long or short trip, according to the time and the means at their disposal. Military commanders were responsible for the first dedicated campgrounds and marking of the major entrance to the park. A system of designated campgrounds was established by Captain Frazier Boutelle during his tenure. Boutelle believed that such campgrounds would aid in preventing fires in the park. In addition to a system of roads, a variety of other structures were erected during the military period to enhance visitor access and enjoyment after the turn of the century. Stairways, drinking water facilities, viewing platforms, and stagecoach unloading platforms were constructed.”

Military justice, surveillance and “fighting” fires in Yellowstone “Visitors were removed for such common activities as throwing stones into thermal features, killing wildlife, soaping geysers, collecting geological specimens from the thermal cones, and writing graffiti on rock formations. Park boundary patrols were also vigilant at keeping out cattle and sheep, and grazing was prohibited within the park as a means of protecting watersheds and plants.“ Elk were collared, trapped, penned, and fed. Alfalfa (origin SW Asia) was grown and harvested in the park in 1904.

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“One of the first tasks that troops engaged in after arriving at Yellowstone in 1886 was fighting forest fires. The threat of forest fires concerned Captain Boutelle, who sought an appropriation to clear downed timber within one hundred feet of all roads and trails. Boutelle believed that a system of regularly controlled campsites at fixed locations would also help prevent fires. He sought additional funding for water wagons, buckets, and fire axes. During the summer of 1889, Boutelle and his men fought sixty-one fires in the park.”

Company D as “Conservation Rangers” at Yellowstone NP, 1893

The Army’s political ecology – good vs bad nature “Upon arrival of the troops in 1886, Captain Harris began patrols of the park boundaries to deter poachers. When apprehended, hunters were expelled, but there was no other method for punishing violators of park rules. In 1894, Congress enacted the Lacey Act, which protected wildlife in Yellowstone, created a mechanism for punishing crimes committed in the park, and established a resident U.S. Commissioner for hearing cases.”

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The Army allowed the killing of predators by its personnel including mountain lions, coyotes and wolves. In 1903 the Army purchased a pack of hounds that were used to track and kill predators. They also used strychnine and steel traps to kill these predators in the park.

Captain Frazier A. Boutelle expanded wildlife conservation measures when he prohibited the introduction of domestic animals (dogs and cats) to the park. Colonel S.B.M. Young, who served as acting superintendent in 1897, advocated construction of a fish hatchery in the park to stock streams and lakes in the park. A hatchery was erected by the Department of Commerce in 1913 near the outlet of Lake Yellowstone. ” The fish hatchery reproduced four non-native and two native fish species to make the park “more attractive to fishermen.

“To bolster the sagging bison population at Yellowstone in the 1890s, the only remaining wild herd in the country, Captain George S. Anderson recommended that replacement animals be purchased from outside the park. Bison were secured from two sources outside the park, funded by an appropriation secured by Representative John F. Lacey for the project. A buffalo ranch was established in 1907 in the Lamar Valley under the direction of a buffalo keeper.” The buffalo ranch raised buffalo for Yellowstone National Park, US wildlife refuges and zoos.

1891 - Elwood Hofer was appointed “Smithsonian Hunter” and trapped moose, buffalo, antelope, black and grizzly bears, foxes, porcupines, hawks, mountain sheep, mountain lions, wolverines, wildcats, mink, marten, badgers, gophers, beaver and otter in Yellowstone – all for shipment to the National Zoological Park.

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General Sherman as a Yellowstone eco-tourist (1881)

Army regulations were in fact the origin of Yellowstone NP policies“The 1886 rules prohibited cutting of green timber or disturbing mineral deposits or natural curiosities; prohibited hunting, trapping, or discharging firearms in the park; prohibited the sale of fish and fishing, except with hook and line; required freight wagons to have wheels at least four inches in width; discouraged unnecessary campfires; prohibited the sale of intoxicating liquor (except by hotel proprietors to their guests); forbade loose stock near the points of interest in the park; prohibited throwing any obstruction in a spring or geyser; and required that stock found wandering in the park be corralled and held until assurances were made that they would not be turned loose in the park again.”

Nature was “nationalized” to be a private monopoly “When he arrived at the park in 1886, Captain Harris found what he believed were irresponsible persons acting as guides and providing transportation for tourists. He suggested that guides be required to

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obtain permission to conduct business and register in his office. He further advocated that all tariff charges for transportation be uniform. Hampton asserted that “it was from this suggestion that the policy of ‘controlled monopoly’ was adopted first by the Department of the Interior, and later by the National Park Service.”

Crony capitalism and railroad barons Railroads (first the Northern Pacific) & coupon tours (1883-1915)In 1882 an exclusive lease grant sponsored by Senator Windom (MN) and Northern Pacific investors – crony capitalism - including 4,400 acres and access to 7 sights, monopoly on transportation and boating in the park, permission to use coal and timber from the park in their operations, rights to run telegraph lines and retail stores. There was no public National Park planning in that era.

From a complex system of leases, trade associations and “possessory interest” to monopoly franchises, unethical conflict of interests, internal spies & bribery with congress and investors – neoliberalism in the commodification of Yellowstone. For 75 years (1892-1967) Child,

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Huntley and their descendants controlled and profited greatly from development at Yellowstone. The Dept. of the Interior allowed the monopoly concessionaires to violate any and all of the regulations at Yellowstone. “Everything was under the exclusive control of the Yellowstone Park Improvement Company, which had been granted a monopoly lease within the park. The Company was allowed to cut as much timber as it needed; kill elk, deer, and bison for food; farm the land; and even re-channel some of the hot springs for water.”

National Park management as an American theme park spectacle - bear shows, island menagerie and “interpretation” as a commercial theme park

Horace Albright and bears at Yellowstone National Park, 1922. Albright was a superintendent of Yellowstone and a Director of the National Park Service

Yellowstone transforms to an automobile theme park Film – Visit to Yellowstone Park 1932 by Ford Motor Co.http://archive.org/details/gov.archives.arc.93712

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How Autos shaped Yellowstone Park

Feeding Elk at the Jackson Hole USFWS refuge

http://www.fws.gov/nwrs/threecolumn.aspx?id=2147511838 Winter feeding of elk in Jackson Hole began in 1910 and was originally initiated to reduce winter mortality of elk, thereby helping preserve a population of animals important to local residents and interest groups, as well as to minimize depredation of rangers; hay. Although these

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immediate factors prompted the initiation of winter feeding, the need for the refuge's winter feeding program is a direct result of reduced access to significant parts of elk native winter range. The creation of Yellowstone National Park in 1872 and the National Elk Refuge in 1912 were crucial in terms of protecting elk and their winter ranges in the greater Jackson Hole area.

Elk were fed hay during at least a portion of most winters from 1912 to 1975. In 1975, after several years of testing, a switch was made to alfalfa pellets. These pellets have a higher nutritional value than baled hay.

Transnational corporate development of Yellowstone NP

Yellowstone Park Company - Harry Child’s 75 yr. family enterprise – the park as a product/experience to market and sell for profit.

Canyon village and 500 motel-type cabins, large 110,000 ft. visitor center, cafeteria for 250, lunch counter for 65. A total of 3,447,729 people visited in 2012. In 2010 the gross revenue for the Yellowstone Park concession was $86 million.

Sale to Goldfield Corp. 1966, YPC stock transferred to a subsidiary General Baking Co. and spent almost nothing on improvements. In 1979 Congress approved a buyout for $19 million which gave the company $14 million profit plus 10 years of revenue. NPS then contracted TW Recreational Services, a subsidiary of another conglomerate, Trans World Corporation whose holdings include TWA, Hilton & Century 21 Real Estate. In 1996 they sold their interest to Amfac Park and Resorts. The Yellowstone lease is still owned by this company which is now named “Xanterra Parks and Resorts.” At peak summertime levels 3,500 employees work for Xanterra. In 2008 the Anschutz Co. bought Xanterra Parks and Resorts. The Anschutz Co. is owned by Denver-based

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multibillionaire (18 billion) Philip Anschutz. Anschutz owns diverse holdings in oil and gas, telecommunications, sports, real estate, newspapers and entertainment.History of Anschutz Corporation see belowhttp://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/the-anschutz-corporation-history/Xanterra Sizzlehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrWEhNvdoo0&feature=youtu.beValuing Anschutz Entertainmenthttp://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/09/20/valuing-what-anschutz-entertainment-might-be-worth/?_r=0The Man Who Owns LAhttp://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/01/16/120116fa_fact_bruck?currentPage=all

“In February 2013 the company won a 20-year contract to manage tourist operations at Yellowstone National Park, which it has run since 2005. The new deal includes managing more than 1,000 lodge rooms

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and more than 1,000 cabins, all of which boast an industry-defying 90 to 100 percent occupancy rate.

The new deal upped Xanterra's franchise fee — the amount it pays the federal government — from 2.5 percent to 4.5 percent of total revenues and required that Xanterra hold 6 percent of its annual gross receipts in a repair-and-maintenance reserve account. The contract also requires that the company spend $134.5 million on facilities improvements, including $70.5 million to replace 407 guest rooms in five new lodges in the park's Canyon area by 2018.

Park Service records show Xanterra generated $79 million in 2009, $86 million in 2010 and $89 million in 2011 from its operations at Yellowstone, which hosted 3.4 million visitors in 2011, down from a record 3.6 million in 2010. About 46 percent of Xanterra's revenue came from lodging, 30 percent from food and beverage, and 14 percent from retail.”

Xanterra Parks & Resorts is the nation's largest concessionaire of national parks, including Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, Zion, Crater Lake, Rocky Mountain and Petrified Forest national parks, Mount Rushmore National Memorial and Furnace Creek Resort in Death Valley NP.

Hotels: 29 and Rooms: 5,600 Food and beverage outlets: 85

Retail stores: 56, and 6 online Golf courses: 7 Horse stables: 4

Tent and RV sites: 1,700

Visitors for all parks: More than 18 million

Employees at peak season: 7,500 Annual meals served: 6.5 million

Xanterra - Green Restaurant Association certification at Yellowstonehttp://www.doi.gov/greening/awards/2012/xanterra.cfm

Yellowstone National Park

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An American Empire Theme Park

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