US Park Service Suppresses Report Critical Of Biodiversity Policy - NYT

"A committee of experts urged the government last March to do much more to preserve biological diversity and ecological integrity in the national parks, but the report has "languished," a panel member says. That member, Dr. Sylvia Earle, an oceanographer who is explorer in residence at the National Geographic Society, said she and her colleagues had expected that the National Park Service would distribute the report and take action on its findings. Instead, she said, "it has just languished."

That is unfortunate, Dr. Earle said, because "the sooner action is taken the easier it will be, the less costly it will be, to maintain the health of the systems upon which all of the recreation depends."

The report did not appear on the Web until this week, when a coalition of retired park employees posted it, accusing the Bush administration of hiding it because of its emphasis on science over recreation. "The report is being held hostage to the Bush administration's campaign of ignoring science in order to clear the way for controversial steps - such as opening up Yellowstone National Park to snowmobiles," the group said.

The park service said yesterday that it posted the report on its own Web site on Wednesday. Tina Kreisher, a spokeswoman for the agency's parent, the Department of the Interior, added that Fran P. Mainella, director of the park service, had intended for the report to be online in September and that the failure to post it was inadvertent."

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http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/29/politics/29park.html