From British daily The Guardian:
Army helicopter training tests wildlife authorities
Martin Wainwright
Monday June 19, 2006
The army has been accused of brushing aside wildlife protection rules in a rush to get Apache helicopter crews trained for service in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Low-flying sorties have disrupted nesting birds on heather upland in the North Yorkshire moors in operations which the local National Park authority has called “disturbing and arrogant”.
A report on the row from the park’s chief executive, Andrew Wilson, claimed that the army Air Corps 9th regiment, based at Dishforth near the moors, flouted agreements to liaise over flight plans and timings.
Dear Kitty. Some blog 
*’Juggling act’ at nation’s parks is not funny*
Posted by: “hapi22” hapi22@earthlink.net robinsegg
Date: Wed Jun 21, 2006 6:32 pm (PDT)
By the time those Americans who love our National Parks realize what the
past three Republican presidents (and Republican Congresses) have done
to destroy those parks, it will be too late.
An it’s a pity, because I think a lot of people who voted for Reagan and
the two Bushes actually love our National Parks and will feel bereft
when the parks are no longer viable.
Little by little, those three Republican presidents (and Republican
Congresses) have let the National Park Service go underfunded, so that,
now, the only parts of these parks that are fully maintained are the
main visitor areas. But the Park Service can no longer do the
maintenance work and conservation work that is essential to the parks’
survival as the wondrous places they are.
Bush is hoping to sell off some of the areas of our National Parks to
the mining and drilling interests. Other parts he wants to have run by
private profit-making companies, so they would no longer be
family-friendly places — just places for rich playboys.
>
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Any time you read in this and other articles that our government cannot
afford to maintain our National Parks, just remember that the funding
required is a drop in the bucket when compared with the money Bush and
the Republicans are giving away in the form of lost revenue by cutting
the taxes and giving tax breaks to the nation’s wealthiest ONE PERCENT.
Bush and his ilk would be happy to cordon off the National Parks and not
let the “riff-raff” in, just save the parks for the use of that
wealthiest ONE PERCENT of Americans — much as the European aristocrats
used to have their private forests and parks, into which no poor or
middle class person could enter.
Is that okay with Americans? That our beloved National Parks could
become the private playgrounds of the nation’s wealthiest to the
exclusion of the rest of us?
Well, Bush is for selling off parts of our National Parks right now. And
he has two and a half years in which to make a lot of sales, and
outright gifts to his “friends.”
I can imagine a time when private companies will be allowed to build
luxury resorts for the ultra-rich in our National Parks, and then those
companies (who have many friends among the Republicans in Congress)
would put pressure on the National Park Service (funded by Congress) to
close the parks one day a week for the exclusive use of the
“high-rollers,” who hate being bothered by those pesky “ordinary”
Americans,
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This is Part II of an Associated Press report on the sad state of our
National Parks.
————————————————————————
*’Juggling act’ at nation’s parks is not funny*
Tight budgets mean cutbacks, even when it comes to toilets
Death Valley National Park Ranger Alan Van Valkenberg
describes wildflowers to tourists. The position of park botanist,
responsible for the cataloging and research of native species and
invasive plants that threaten them, is unfilled due to budget
constraints.
by Rita Beamish and Frank Bass
MSNBC
June 20, 2006
An Associated Press series found that the national parks are facing
unprecedented pressures.
In Part II, park officials talk of the difficult juggling act when funds
are short.
>
[NOTE FROM ME: Get ready … they are about to PRIVATIZE our
National Parks. That’s the Republican way of finding “new ways
of management.”]
MUST READ:
Part I: Pressures, inside and out, on the parks, at:
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/13363560/
Read this and MORE at: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/13363621/
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