Craters of the Moon Administrative History

Chapter 6:
RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

Resource Management At Craters Of The Moon:
NATURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT: GEOLOGIC RESOURCES

Issues And Highlights

Natural resource management at Craters of the Moon National Monument constitutes the majority of management concerns. Historically, protection of the geologic resources has been the primary management focus because the volcanic formations were the basis for the area's creation and are its central theme. Protection of wildlife, vegetation, water, and air quality have formed a secondary but nonetheless important management emphasis. In all cases, custodians and superintendents have pursued policies of mitigation, education, and enforcement to strike the balance between preservation and use of the monument's varied natural resources.

Geologic Resources

Attracting the majority of visitor activity and visitor related impacts, the lava formations are plagued with the chronic problems of illegal collection, vandalism, and other forms of human erosion. Unlike biological resources, the volcanic features are frozen in time. Where grass or trees can regenerate, only a new eruption can replenish the lavas. Until then, they will breakdown. While a natural process, erosion is accelerated by visitor contact. Federal laws and National Park Service regulations prohibit unauthorized collection and vandalism, yet both exist. [11]

To the untrained eye, the lavas seem indestructible, when in fact the opposite is true; they are deceptively fragile--realized all too starkly by the disappearance of known formations and the degradation of others. Thus efforts to protect the sensitive terrain have required vigilance from monument managers. Balancing preservation and use has led to changes ranging from modifications in the types of acceptable visitor behavior and activity to rehabilitation of popular features. Similar to other aspects of Craters of the Moon's management, the long term effects of depletion and damage from visitor use were not readily apparent nor rigorously managed until mid-century when visitation accelerated and the monument's administration grew in response to increasing pressures. Although the majority of damage occurs within the monument's developed interior, among the outstanding natural features, resource problems are not isolated to these sites alone. Finding a way to protect the geologic resources has meant combating the perception that the already broken, twisted, and contorted landscape is not susceptible to alteration, when it is even by the most incidental human contact.

Impacts to the lava terrain, many of them through benign actions, predated the establishment of the monument. At the turn of the century, scientific groups entered the lava flows of Craters of the Moon and by the early 1920s unrestrained sightseers roamed the formations by foot, horse, or auto. As promotion of the area accelerated, so did visitation and souvenir hunting. Lava bombs, tree molds, squeeze tubes, and loose fragments of aa and pahoehoe lava were among the volcanic specimens attractive to scientists for research and to individuals for souvenirs. Commercial interests, to a degree, also threatened the reserve's "great scientific and scenic wonders." Before the monument was established, at least one entrepreneur had "had sold several hundred dollars' worth of curiously formed lava bombs" taken from "the slopes of the volcanoes." [12]

Even after the Park Service placed Custodian Samuel Paisley in charge in 1925, it was evident that fascination with volcanic rocks would persist. In January, the Arco Advertiser reported what was then and is now a common reason for impacts to geologic features: "There is the general desire on the part of visitors to take home specimens of the different kinds of lava to show friends." Similarly, universities were conducting scientific outings at an increasing rate. [13] Perhaps the most famous rock collector was Park Service Director Horace Albright himself. Demonstrating the attractive qualities of the monument's lava rocks, Albright "tried to carry an armful of `lava bombs' for half a mile or so" during his 1924 inspection, "in order to make them available for photographing." Sensing his mistake, however, he concluded: "I finally got them to the car, but resolved that I would never again gather specimens at Craters of the Moon National Monument." [14]

The crowded conditions of Opening Day, 1939, give some indication of growing pressures on monument resources.
(CRMO Museum Collection)