LOWELL, Mass. - Many folks took advantage of one of "America's best ideas" over the weekend. National parks in Massachusetts and around the nation were full of visitors who were able to enter free of charge until Sunday as part of National Parks Week.

Ron Tipton, senior vice president for policy with the National Parks Conservation Association, says the event was a way to remind Americans of the value and availability of the nation's parks and the importance of preserving them. He says park visitation numbers have been up, and they expect the trend to continue.

"We're building on the largest increase in a single year in national park attendance in many, many years. We had a four percent increase in visitation to the national parks during 2009."

From the Cape Cod National Seashore to Lowell National Historical Park and the Appalachian National Scenic Trail, Tipton says Bay Staters are proud of the natural beauty and heritage of their state.

"These parks are very important to the people of the state, and not insignificantly, they help the economy of communities located near parks."

Tipton is grateful that preserving the country's national parks is a bi-partisan issue. He also is encouraged by President Obama's newly launched "Americas Great Outdoor's Initiative," which he says will help keep the role of national parks, land conservation and wildlife protection central to the national dialogue.



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As opponents to the Bureau of Land Management's new rules push back, public lands advocates are praising the agency's decision to put conservation on par with other uses, such as oil and gas extraction and development.

In Arizona, the BLM manages just over 12 million acres of public land.

Daniel Hart, director of clean energy and climate policy with the National Parks Conservation Association, said the state's 22 national parks share boundaries with those public lands and considers them an interconnected landscape. In Arizona, Hart cites Grand Canyon National Park, run by the National Park Service, as having an intersection of differently managed public lands.

"You have NPS-managed Grand Canyon National Park, you have the jointly-managed two monuments that BLM has its hands in, so it is already doing its conservation piece there," Hart explained. "But then, you have all that other BLM public land surrounding it, touching it, and it's been open to all kinds of extractive development over the years."

Hart added oil and gas extractive developments have led to issues with water, wildlife, Tribal nations and the national parks themselves. He contends the BLM, by implementing its public lands rule -- as well as its oil and gas rule, which revises outdated fiscal terms for leasing operations --will ensure that landscapes are looked at holistically.

Matthew Kirby, senior director of energy and landscape conservation with the NPCA, argues the two rules will bring what he calls a "semblance of balance back to public lands," allowing the BLM to manage those lands with a multiple-use approach in mind. He added the oil and gas program was an example of how unbalanced management has been until now.

"Industry was allowed to lock up land for less than a price of a cup of coffee," he said. "They could speculate, they could develop, all at the expense of the taxpayer and the public that was no longer actually able to use that land, to recreate on that land. But thanks to this new rule, we are really on the path to fixing that broken system."

Kirby said the oil and gas rule will help enshrine what he terms "critical updates" that were a part of the Inflation Reduction Act, including increases on the royalties, rental rates and terms for leasing public lands for development.

The Bureau of Land Management recently released two rules that alter how the agency manages its 245 million acres of public lands, 48 million of which are found in Nevada.

The BLM's new Public Lands Rule will put conservation on par with other multiple uses, and the agency's Fluid Mineral Leases and Leasing Process Rule revises outdated fiscal terms for oil and gas leasing operations.

Nevada is home to four national parks which bring the state more than $280 million in economic benefit from tourism, according to the National Park Service.

The National Parks Conservation Association's Senior Program Manager of Energy and Landscape Conservation - Beau Kiklis - contended national parks are not just what he called "islands of conservation," but components of a much larger connected landscape.

"In Nevada, in particular Southern Nevada," said Kiklis, "where we do have an abundance of BLM land, there is also an abundance of national park sites in the southern part of the state, going up all the way until Death Valley. "

Kiklis said the new rule will introduce a more responsible approach to where and how the BLM authorizes oil and gas leasing as they'll be taking a closer look at "leasing preference criteria."

Kiklis said that means the agency will be assessing whether there are historic properties, sacred sites and cultural resources that are within a proposed lease area.

If there are, he said the agency will look to other areas where operators already are.

Matthew Kirby, senior director of energy and landscape conservation with the NPCA, argued the two rules will bring what he called a "semblance of balance back to public lands," and will allow the BLM to fulfill its obligation to manage those lands with a multiple use approach in mind.

He added that the oil and gas program was an example of how unbalanced management had been until now.

"Industry was allowed to lock up land for less than a price of a cup of coffee," said Kirby. "They could speculate, they could develop, all at the expense of the taxpayer and the public that was no longer actually able to use that land, to recreate on that land. But thanks to this new rule, we are really on the path to fix that broken system."

Kirby said the oil and gas rule will enshrine what he calls "critical updates," that were a part of the Inflation Reduction Act - and includes increases on the royalties and rental rates and terms for leasing the development of public lands.

As critics work to roll back new Bureau of Land Management rules, public lands advocates are defending the agency's move to put conservation uses on equal footing with extraction and development.

Matthew Kirby, senior director of energy and landscape conservation for the National Parks Conservation Association, said the new rules can be used to benefit national parks, for example, by reducing pollution from oil and gas drilling on the 3.3 million acres of BLM-managed mineral rights in eastern Colorado.

"Thousands of feet higher than where the actual drilling is happening, you can go up to Rocky Mountain National Park," Kirby recounted. "You can't even see on some days, (in part) because of pollution that is coming from drilling activities."

The rules also identify conservation tools to restore degraded lands owned by all Americans, and to keep natural landscapes intact. Industry groups have called the rules a land grab. Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., and Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., have promised to repeal the rules finalized in April, claiming they block access to public lands and subvert the multiple-use requirement under the Federal Land Policy Management Act.

Ninety percent of lands managed by the BLM remain open for oil and gas development. There are more than 31,000 orphaned wells within 30 miles of national parks and the new rules update bonding requirements to prevent more abandoned sites. Kirby noted until now, corporations have run the show.

"Industry was allowed to lock up land for less than the price of a cup of coffee," Kirby asserted. "They could speculate, they could develop, all at the expense of the taxpayer and the public that was no longer actually able to recreate on that land. But thanks to this new rule, we're really on a path to fix that broken system."

The new rule also gives the BLM tools to steer any future oil and gas development away from national parks. More than 80 national park units sit adjacent to public lands managed by the BLM and Kirby argued any development affects parks, connected waterways and wildlife migration corridors.

"Wildlife migrate across borders, water moves across national park borders, air flows in and out," Kirby stressed. "What happens outside of national parks really is critical to national park resources."