<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN"> <HTML> <HEAD> <META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=us-ascii"> <META NAME="Generator" CONTENT="MS Exchange Server version 6.0.6603.0"> <TITLE>National Park funding trend: USA Today</TITLE> </HEAD> <BODY>  Budgets chop away at park funds By Tom Kenworthy, USA TODAY Not so long ago, protecting visitors to Yosemite National Park from marauding bears might have been seen as an essential duty of the National Park Service. Not in these days of tight federal budgets. When it came to putting 2,000 new bear-proof food lockers at the popular California park's campgrounds and trailheads, the job fell to the Yosemite Fund, a private, non-profit group that provides millions every year to supplement government funding. With the cash-strapped park service struggling to keep up with basic needs, parks from the Sierra Nevada to the coast of Maine are increasingly relying on private donations from park "friends" groups such as the Yosemite Fund. Park-support groups used to provide the icing, but now it's the cake, too, says Bill Wade, former superintendent of Shenandoah National Park. "I don't think park superintendents like that one bit," he says, "but to keep the visitor centers open, they are having to dig deeper and deeper into that pot of private money." As they are being asked to do more — to the point of providing necessities such as new bathrooms and lifesaving defibrillators for park rangers — many of the 200 park-support groups find themselves straddling a fine line. They wonder if their charity is discouraging full funding of the park system by the federal government. "Philanthropists want to know that the government is doing its job, too," says Bob Hansen, the president of the Yosemite Fund, which has funneled $33 million to the park since 1988 The Yosemite Fund's most ambitious project: financing most of a $13.5 million overhaul of visitor services at Yosemite Falls, a park attraction. When it's dedicated in April, the project will have removed a crowded, exhaust-filled parking lot, replaced cracked asphalt trails leading to the falls, built a stone amphitheater and built interpretive exhibits explaining the natural history of the area. The increased burden on private donors is a concern, says Bill Lane, a former publishing company chairman and U.S. ambassador to Australia who contributed $1 million to the Yosemite Falls project. But, says Lane, "national parks represent the very best of what our country stands for" and deserve private philanthropy. Compared with many domestic spending programs, the National Park Service — which enjoys broad congressional support — has fared well in recent years. Since 1997, the service's basic operations budget has grown by about 5.7% a year. Yet annual funding is about $600 million less than what the National Parks Conservation Association estimates the system needs. On top of that is a construction and maintenance backlog estimated to be about $6 billion. "The park service as a whole is underfunded by about one-third," says the conservation association's senior vice president, Ron Tipton. In a 2003 study of private park funding, the General Accounting Office found that charity is growing to help fill the gap. Donations by private park-support groups swelled from $27 million in 1997 to more than $47 million in 2001, the GAO found, and about 90% of park service properties benefited. Acadia National Park, one of the park service's jewels, exemplifies the trend. Maintaining the luster of Acadia's 47,000 acres of rugged shoreline, mountains, ponds and woodlands on Maine's coast is dependent on a steady stream of private financing provided by Friends of Acadia. "Our job is to add value," says Ken Olson, who heads the organization. It began modestly 19 years ago by donating microscopes to park education programs and has since ballooned into a major source of funding. The $4.6 million that Friends of Acadia has donated to the park in the past decade has helped fund a propane-powered bus system visitors use to tour the park, rehabilitated the park's renowned carriage roads and financed Youth Conservation Corps crews who maintain hiking trails. To the south, at Great Smoky Mountains National Park on the North Carolina-Tennessee border, the story is similar. About 4,000 donors to Friends of the Smokies give more than $2 million a year for park improvements. A big chunk comes from the sales of specialty license plates issued by the states. Thanks, Udo Freund </BODY> </HTML>