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Writing Your Own Comment Letter

Written comments may be submitted through the Planning, Environment and Public Comment website at http://parkplanning.nps.gov, in person, or by mail to the below address . Comments will not be accepted over the phone, by fax, or e-mail. All public comments must be received or postmarked by midnight, January 29, 2007. 

Letters can be mailed to:
Benefits Sharing DEIS Team
Yellowstone Center for Resources
P.O. Box 168
Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming 82190

Be sure to include your name, home address, city, state, postal code, and country. If you are submitting on behalf of of an organization, indicate the organization's name and whether you are the organization's official representative. The above details will be made public unless you tell NPS not to do so and tell them so prominently at the beginning of your comments.

For more information or to submit your comments online via the NPS website visit: http://parkplanning.nps.gov/document.cfm?parkId=442&projectId=12515&documentID=16763

Points to include in your comment letter:

1) I support Alternative C. I want NO Commercial Bioprospecting in the National Parks.

  • Alternative C allows scientific research in the Parks, but will NOT research that is purely commercial in its purpose.

  • By NPS's own admission, Alternative C won't get in the way of more than 99% of all scientific research.

  • Alternative C means that wildlife and biological resources of the Parks will not be exploited for commercial purposes. Yellowstone and the other national parks were designated as parks to protect them from exploitation and to ensure they "remain unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations."

  • Alternative C let's Park staff scientific staff to devote all their time to science in the public interest. They won't have to spend the time, effort, and budget necessary to negotiate Commercial Research and Development Agreements (CRADAs).

2) I OPPOSE all the versions of Alternative B, including the NPS' favorite, Alternative B2.

  • Alternative B allows commercial bioprospecting and encourages deal-making with commercial enterprises, allowing them to remove biological organisms from the Parks for purely commercial purposes. This undermines the basic mission of the Parks and is a direct threat to the public commons.

  • Alternative B2 does not guarantee transparency in the deal making. CRADAs, the kind of deals NPS is proposing, allow either side to designate part of the deal as confidential business information -- outside the public view. By law, NPS would be forced to keep details such as royalty amounts and other financial information from the public. We wouldn't even be able to judge whether NPS was making good deals or not.

  • Alternative B would require NPS research staff to devote part of their time to negotiating and managing CRADAs made for commercial purposes. This would take time away from research in the public interest. This would force NPS officials and outside contractors to travel and devote time and money to make CRADAs.

  • Alternative B sets a bad precedent that will open the door to more extractive activities for commercial purposes. B would apply to all 84.4 million acres of the National Park System, including millions of acres now designated as Wilderness Areas.

3. Research is good, but NPS must ensure that our parks are not for sale. No way.