Don’t Let Corporate Sponsorship Take Root at Our Parks, Beaches
The corporate sponsorship phenomenon has gone natural--or, more accurately, it could be said that nature has gone corporate. The Board of Supervisors recently proposed selling advertisement space at county beaches as a way to drum up money for shrinking recreational budgets. If everything goes as planned, we can soon expect to see beach-side trash cans, benches, phone booths, and even lifeguard towers festooned with logos of our favorite corporate sharks.
The instigators of this lamentable trend don’t intend to quit at beaches. A nonprofit advocacy organization calling itself State Park Partners is pushing a proposal to sell corporate sponsorship of hiking trails, visitor centers and other improvements in California’s state parks. Not to be outdone, Sen. Frank Murkowski (R-Alaska) introduced legislation that would have allowed the federal government to solicit corporate sponsorship for national parks. Is everybody ready for, just to imagine, “Pepsi Yosemite Falls” and “Old Faithful--Brought to You by Ford”?
When corporate sponsorship first reared its ugly head a number of years ago, it seems only a few, isolated cries were heard protesting this trend of excessive commercialism. Everyone else simply yawned and accepted such absurd incarnations as the “Poulan Weed-Eater Bowl” and “Snickers, Official Snack Food of the U.S. Olympic Team” (talk about your oxymorons). Most folks probably assumed this is as far as corporate sponsorship would go, forgetting that the average American huckster considers good taste an advertising slogan and class the place they learned the three R’s.
The very idea of plastering corporate logos all over our beaches and parks should offend our sense of aesthetics. Officials have assured us any advertising will be “appropriate,” but who will be the judge of that?
Regardless of how unobtrusive the signs are, such crass capitalism does not belong in the very places people go to escape the corporate world. Any corporate presence at all unavoidably would detract from the natural experiences these places were meant to provide.
Moreover, it is a sign of hubris to consider that nature even should be sponsored. Such a sentiment highlights a fundamental misunderstanding of the natural process: the feeling that humanity somehow controls nature. Most people seem to have forgotten that nature simply is. It is symptomatic of our bloated sense of self-importance to think we can “sponsor” something so fluid and ever-changing as a shoreline or a forest. It seems more sensible to post signs reading “These Wetlands Brought to You by Mother Nature” or “This Beach is Provided Courtesy of Earth.”
The rationalization behind the twisted idea--that corporations will be glad to help augment shrinking recreational budgets in exchange for a little advertising--reeks of hypocrisy. Many of the companies that will be courted for advertising dollars are the very companies responsible for the sorry state of the natural world. Their desire to do something good is nothing more than a feeble effort to make amends for past transgressions. Better those multibillion-dollar corporations donate money freely without expecting the quid pro quo of advertising--in this way they would truly begin to atone for their sins.
And what of the whining officials who claim the only way to balance recreational budgets is by selling space on phone booths, benches and hiking trails? These budgets typically pay for maintenance and improvements that visitors demand. Why not just cut the budgets? If people decide they absolutely need showers and fire pits at the beach or visitor centers at state parks, well, they should pay for them. An increase in user fees, for example, would be a small price to pay to keep our beaches and parks free from the oppressive corporate motif.
Must we label everything? Again imagining, how long will it be before we find signs reading “This Giant Sequoia Brought to You By Georgia-Pacific”? Will we finally draw the line when we see a poster telling us “This Sunset Is Proudly Sponsored by Exxon”? (At least this promotional campaign makes sense. After all, the brilliant-red Southern California sunset is more often than not a result of smog.) Just a thought, but we citizens could fight this onerous trend by posting our own signs at beaches and parks: Keep Nature Natural--No Corporate Logos Allowed.