249 



Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Lands Page 2 



July 25, 1995 



employ 520 instructors and staff at our eight branches worldwide and have annual 

 revenues that exceed $12 million. Our courses travel in 19 national parks, 21 national 

 forests, three national wildlife refuges and Bureau of Land Management lands in eight 

 western states. ^ 



NOLS has three concessions: Denali National Park (mountaineering). Dinosaur 

 National Monument (river running), and Grand Teton National Park (backcountry 

 skiing). Additionally, we operate with commercial use licenses ("CULs") in sixteen other 

 national parks and have 35 special recreation use permits used to access a variety of 

 other federal lands. Thirty years of complying with this dazzling variety of permits 

 provides us with a depth of experience that we are happy to share with you today. 



Principles for concession reform 



We believe the debate should be underscored with the value that commercial 

 recreation operations can provide to the public and to the land itself. The industry can 

 assist agencies to protect the integrity and long-term viability of the resource, provide 

 quality recreational experiences, ensure the public health and safety, provide for 

 educational and interpretative needs of the public, and provide access to and education 

 about public lands to a growing and increasingly diverse constituency of public land 

 users. We are not afraid of competition, evaluations, or reasonable fees, but we are 

 afraid of competition for competition's sake, evaluations that weigh federal revenue 

 enhancement above quality service, and the potential for fee-wars that jeopardize our 

 charitable contributions to land management. 



Concession management, understood in its broadest scope regarding any 

 commercial recreational activity on federal land, should be based on the following 

 principles: 



