POPE COUNTY, Ill. (WSIL) — Groups seeking to turn the Shawnee National Forest into a national park are nothing new.
“The people pushing this tried to do the same thing in 1995,” said Cricket Simmons, national director of the Backcountry Horsemen.
The Illinois Back Country Horsemen reunited about five years ago and has since grown to an organization of more than 100 people with a mission to improve the landscape.
“For the past few years, our group here in Illinois has been volunteering about 3,000 hours a year on the trail,” Simmons said.
So it’s no wonder Simmons and the Backcountry Horsemen oppose changing the Shawnee National Forest to a national park.
“It’s all about limits and fees,” he says. “When you go to a national park, there’s an entrance fee. Everyone goes through the gate and pays the fee. In the national forest, there’s no fee at all.”
Simmons points out that another big difference is who manages national parks.
“National parks are very restrictive, even campgrounds and things like that, and they’re owned by the Park Service,” Simons said. “They’re run by vendors. The vendors are all concerned about making a profit.”
One of the biggest economic benefits for southern Illinois is hunting in the Shawnee National Forest. Simmons said there would be no hunting in Shawnee if it was converted to a park.
“There is no hunting at all in the national park,” he stressed.
Simmons knows that proponents of the transition to national parks will try to tout tourism as a big factor, but he says tourism is not the problem.
“Since the first solar eclipse and through COVID-19, all the studies show that forest use here has increased by 38% in the last three to four years alone,” he said. “This is a huge increase in tourism.”
Another factor is the people already living on the land. What will become of the thousands of people who have decided to call land within the Shawnee National Forest home?
“The whole forest here is very cut out,” Simmons explains. “Private land is being flooded. That’s why it’s very difficult to turn this into a private park unless you claim a prominent piece of land and buy an equivalent amount of land. It’s a forest. I mean, five. It’s 50 minutes.”
So for Simmons and the Backcountry Horseman folks, it’s best to leave them well alone.
“We’re better off because of the Forest Service. We have better access. Our forests have much better management programs, and in the future the original forests will be owned by the Forest Service.” will be healthier than ever under the ,” Simons said. It would be under the jurisdiction of the Parks Department. ”
Converting the Shawnee National Forest to a national park would require an act of Congress. Congressman Mike Bost opposes the move.
