Everglades National Park is accepting public comment on 4 management plan alternatives. Alternative 3 and 4 would create an alternative wilderness waterway allowing much greater solitude. 3 and 4 also curtail the use of motorboats in parts of the park for solitude and to protect resources that they have been destroying. The motorboaters are commenting in great numbers, something like 5 to 1 over paddlers, asking for alternative 1 which has almost no changes from the old plan. Please get some comment cards from the park and take them to your paddling friends and clubs. Don’t let the power boaters decide this. Check out the plans here, http://parkplanning.nps.gov/document.cfm?parkID=374&projectId=11170&documentID=26021 , Comment here, http://parkplanning.nps.gov/commentForm.cfm?parkID=374&projectID=11170&documentId=26021 , Thanks, Peace Joel
They are considering making paddlers
… take a course before going out in the park. Please oppose this in any comments.
Not necessarily agains a course.
Requiring people to take a course, at least once, on requirements for proper camping and on safety and navigation issues could be useful.
What sort of course were they thinking about?
Standard power boater course.
It has no relevance to paddlers in the park. The logic is its only fair because the power boaters have to take one so they don’t damage the resource. Paddlers don’t do much damage to the resource. All the paddlers this season don’t do as much damage to Florida Bay as one fool in a power boat furrowing the Turtle Grass. I see it every day.
OK, that explains it.
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