I'm so tired of these commissions. Someone appoints a range of experts, they get together, and they write a report. However, those who are using the commission for their own purposes make sure that the report will be used for setting the agenda and moving the levers of power based on the desires of the people setting up the commission. We are still quoting the Leopold Report, and so there's no doubt that these commissions can be highly influential. However, I would argue that commissions are by and large set up as a vehicle toward some other pre-determined end. While there are no doubt results that sometimes challenge or inform the conventional wisdom of the group that sets up the commission, these end up being mere adjustments in a larger campaign. Of course, occasionally, the commission comes up with the wrong answer (like Bush's commission on the Iraq war), and then they are safely shelved.

I've worked in nonprofits in different fields, and I can tell you that my bosses intentionally had outcomes in mind; they knew the point of a commission was to get buy in from the larger world of elites and perhaps an ear to potential problems with the agenda. Unfortunately, while it's important to build consensus across a spectrum of people, it perpetuates the cynical view that we can't build a real public advocacy in the population at large. Instead, we use the elites to meld public opinion rather than understanding the fundamental disconnect between people and the strange and overpayed land of think tank consultant-dom that comes up with these ideas.

That's not to say that a lot of these elites aren't very smart people and that some of them don't have some grasp on the larger social implications (many are quite brilliant and sensitive); it is to say that the process is incomplete. It's as if there's a world where consensus is important and a world where telling the public what the world of experts thinks (that is, top down) is more important than consensus. That wouldn't be a problem where the subject really requires only expertise - like in medicine or any other scientific or technological field. You don't get consensus from the public before you agree on what is cancer and what is not. However, when you talk about parks and policy, this is primarily an issue of values first - the parks are set aside primarily first because of a value. So, since you are talking about values about governance and power and control (that is policy and its execution), you have to involve the public as a primary vehicle. So, I strongly object to the process of such a commission as a vehicle for change. It's inconsistent to work for consensus like this; it's not a question for a range of experts - it's a question for all people. And, the only hope of the commission is that it realizes its own shortcoming in being able to come up with recommendations for the parks and encourages an aggressive plan for people to have the opportunity to become not only advocates for parks but also to have a real say in what they are and what they should be.

What I've said perhaps seems to be open to the criticism that leaving the public too much say and participation in the process will lead to the kind of mismanagement one would expect if for instance one let Cody and West Yellowstone determine Yellowstone snowmobile policy. However, first off, the public isn't really the owner of the processes even representing those towns; secondly, public isn't restricted to those towns. There's no reason why non-locals shouldn't have a say as well and be part of the process.

Another objection is the sheer logistics of it all. That's no doubt an issue, but if we agree that it's the starting point, then the consequences of the mind-numbing logistics involved with true participatory involvement in considering parks issues should be met head on. If it's socially impossible to conceive of a coherent American parks system AND a truly participatory system in coming to terms with issues and management, then I'd argue that it's the former that needs to go, that the former must have been built on a fundamentally flawed process - and that we will be bound to be spinning in circles. And, really, that comes down to the main reason I'm so tired of these commissions. Because in the end, it's a lot of spinning. There are often some very good ideas, but ideas without the right process mean little. Since commissions are used in part to give process validation to the right ideas, it's all the more troubling in this case when we go down this route.

Jim Macdonald
The Magic of Yellowstone
Yellowstone Newspaper
Jim's Eclectic World