The government of the USA’s third-largest state, led by Arnold Schwarzenegger, is struggling to plug a US$26billion budget shortfall and has turned its attention on the state parks to cut costs. According to Ruth Coleman, California’s state park director, private and public investors are being sought to prevent the closure of up to 80 per cent of the state’s 279 parks, but in the meantime, visitor fees have been increased and even doubled in some cases.

Conservationists are concerned that closing off vast tracts of land to the public would not only be detrimental to the environment and remove an important public resource, it could also worsen the state’s financial affairs. California’s state parks, which include parts of the Sierra Nevada mountains and the Big Sur wetlands, attract millions of visitors and generate considerable income – each visitor is thought to be worth US$57 per visit.

‘The state gains enormous economic benefit from our state parks system – more than US$4.2billion is generated annually from park-related visitor spending in local economies,’ said Traci Verardo-Torres, vice president of government affairs for the California State Parks Foundation. ‘In these times, California cannot afford to close our treasured state parks.’

October 2009