National Parks Facing Sale

01:31 April 0 Comments


A conflict has arisen between environmentalism and consumer capitalism. An example of this is the struggle of the US state Wyoming to fund maintenance of the Grand Teton national park. The Government of Wyoming has threatened to sell off part of Grand Teton, unless the US administration can come up with more money to pay for eduction in the state. They make as little as $3,000 a year from leasing some of the national park land to cattle ranchers and feels it could make more income to benefit the state and its inhabitants. The part of land they may sell is valued at $125 million. Cultural attitudes towards the environment may favour its preservation or conservation, other social values- especially the need for capital to fund vital social services- can create a conflict of interest. 

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/aug/06/wyoming-grand-teton-national-park

The US government has struggled to fund the national parks and so have began to seek funding. They have started to find co-funders for the national parks. In 2007 Coca-Cola became a partner by donating $2.5 million to park fundraising. In return Coke were given exclusive rights to use the parks logos in its adverts and vetoed the plan to ban bottled water from sale at the Grand Canyon. Disposable plastic bottles are the number one source of litter at the Grand Canyon. But Coke owns Dasani the top selling water. 
Park service abandoned its longstanding policy of disallowing any links to alcohol or tobacco products when Anheuser-Busch donated $2.5 million. In turn Budweiser were symbolically given the statue of liberty, which they can now use in their advertising campaigns. 

http://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/sold-national-parks-go-to-the-highest-corporate-bidder/

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