Private land in national parks at risk for development

About 4.3 million acres of privately owned land lie within the 391 National Park Service properties nationwide, according to a National Parks Conservation Assn. report released Tuesday.

Of these acres, 1.8 million are considered priorities to be acquired for recreation and habitat connectivity at a cost of $1.9 billion, according to the parks service.

The national parks were set up by Congress to acquire and protect lands within their boundaries for resources preservation and public use. But federal appropriations to the Land and Water Conservation Fund, the primary source of the National Park Service's acquisition money, has dropped by more than $100 million in the last nine years, according to the report.

As a result, in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, the country's largest urban park and the most visited recreation area, about 1,300 acres of private land is developed each year, according to a second conservation association report. About 46% of the recreation area's roughly 153,000 acres are privately held. Some parcels are up for purchase, but the park has received no money in the last eight years from the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

"The federal government needs to provide basically an infusion of financial support to the park, and not just this park, but to all the parks and the park system," said Ron Sundergill, director of the association's Pacific regional office. "Clearly, the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area is hurting because it has not been getting the level of support that it needs."

The conservation association reports focused on the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area and on potentially developable private lands across the country that the park service would like to acquire.

In 2005, a couple from California purchased about 20 acres in the center of Zion National Park in Utah and, relying on a 40-year-old commercial use permit, developed a "mega-lodging and spiritual center," said Ron Tipton, senior vice president for programs for the conservation association.

The park service said the couple is offering to sell the agency 10 undeveloped acres, which the service said would cost about $800,000.