Benefits: 



. Stopped incremental development. 

 . Saved capital costs and prevented rising 

 long-term 08dvl costs. 



• Provides no- fee parks for visitors. 



. Preserves 15 sites as they were in 1993. 



. Recognizes the needs of one segment of 

 the population who prefer these sites 

 remain as they are, protected from further 

 development. 



Disadvantages: 



. Limits management flexibility to deal with 

 unforeseen problems, changing 

 conditions, and changing visitor needs. 



• Restricts options for maintaining existing 

 development. 



• "Primitive" is not an appropriate 

 description for some of the sites 

 designated under the act. 



• Does not acknowledge the potential 

 benefits of developed or semi-developed 

 zones within lai^er primitive landscapes. 



• Some provisions of the Primitive Parks 

 Act may conflict with provisions in the 

 Good Neighbor PoUcy (23- 1- 126, MCA). 



To remedy these problems, the committee 

 considered amending the Primitive Parks Act 

 or replacing it with new legislation. They 

 eventually agreed to recommend creation of a 

 new management framework aimed at 

 preventing incremental development (see 

 Recommendation 2 below), and repealing the 

 act for several reasons. First, they agreed that 

 the day-to-day planning and management of 

 the state parks should be the responsibility of 

 professional park and recreation managers. 

 Second, they agreed that management could 

 be more effective if various zones of 

 development were recognized within each 

 park, rather than designating a single 

 development standard for an entire park. 

 Third, the committee wanted to separate the 

 issue of providing no- fee parks from the issue 

 of preventing incremental development. 



Recommendation 1 : Recognizing that the 

 management planning process has been 

 set to meet statutory intent at Chief Plenty 

 Coups and Pictograph Cave state paries, 

 after Parits Division consults with the 

 Crow Tribe and the Friends of Chief 

 Plenty Coups State Park, the Legislature 

 should repeal 23- 1- 130, MCA- 



Recommendation 2 : To increase the 

 visibility of state paries and improve the 

 ability of the Paries Division to solve 

 problems, the Legislature should amend 

 the statute creating the FWP Commission 

 to require at least one representative on 

 the Commission with a demonstrated 

 interest in paries and recreation. 



Planning and Management 



Planning Principles 



The Futures Committee agreed on the 

 following broad, over-arching principles to 

 guide the planning of each park unit. 



Planning for each park must be based on a 

 thorough identification, assessment, and 

 analysis of its resources. Potential planning 

 decisions must be measured against (a) the 

 enabling legislation and mission statements, 

 (b) short- and long-term public need and 

 demand for these resources, (c) capital 

 available or projected to be available, (d) 

 projected maintenance requirements of the 

 parks, and (e) appropriate and sustainable use 

 considerations. 



Plarming should also recognize that a wide 

 spectrum of outdoor recreation opportunities 

 is available in Montana, from undeveloped 

 federal wilderness areas to highly urbanized 

 municipal and private parks. Within this 

 spectrum, the state parks system fills a 

 narrower niche— most if not all state parks 

 have signif icandy more facility development 



State Parks Futures Committee, DeoerrixrS, 2002 



