Economic vs. Scientific Value: The Case of National Parks
Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona. There is an interesting piece in today's New York Times about the expansion of Petrified Forest National Park in north-eastern Arizona. The park, which began its life as a National Monument under Theodore Roosevelt in 1906, has now been enriched with over 25,000 acres of land formerly belonging to a private ranch. Negotiations between the Dpt. of the Interior and the owner of this land had been stalled for over a decade. The reason is that the two parties could not agree to a price. The ranch's owner, Marvin Hatch, demanded $500 per acre, which would have amounted to over $13 million in total. When the government refused, Hatch turned the land -- which is especially prized for the abundant dinosaur fossil it contains -- into a private theme park. Calling it International Petrified Forest, Hatch built a giant concrete dinosaur along I-40 to attract visitors and charge them an entrance fee. International Petrif...