Article:
WALPOLE, N.H. THOUSANDS of people are expected to gather at the north entrance to Yellowstone National Park on Aug. 25 to celebrate a uniquely American idea. The National Park Service turns 100 years old, and its birthday party will take place under a stone arch emblazoned with the words For the benefit and enjoyment of the people.
No nation had ever set aside such a magnificent place for that reason. Wild reserves had been the exclusive property of nobility or the rich. Decisions by Congress to protect Yellowstone and other wonders reflected a different idea: In a democracy, such landscapes should belong to everyone.
But that idea included a challenge: Places like Yellowstone must also be preserved, as President Theodore Roosevelt urged his fellow citizens, for our children and their childrens children forever, with their majestic beauty all unmarred.
That tension between access and preservation has become ever more strained today.
In 1916, when the National Park Service was created, there were a dozen national parks, all of them in the West,
by 326,506 people. Today, 412 parks, national monuments and historic sites cover more than 84 million acres and were visited more than 307 million times last year. Attendance is setting records this summer, and by the time the year ends, the number of visits over the last 100 years is expected to crest 13.5 billion.
The fear that the nations parks might be loved to death is not new, only more pronounced.
In Yellowstones early years, visitors dumped laundry soap into geysers in hopes of making the eruptions more spectacular. Poachers slaughtered the nations remnant bison herd, which dwindled to a few dozen animals before new laws brought it to a halt.
Concerns about cars and the crowds they bring were raised by the great conservationist John Muir more than a century ago. He worried about the blunt-nosed mechanical beetles that might mingle their gas-breath with the fresh air of Yosemite (though he acknowledged they might help create more park allies by increasing the number of visitors).
It was Conrad Wirth, a park service director, who 60 years ago warned that the parks were in danger of being loved to death. Families arriving in station wagons filled with baby boomer children were flooding into the parks. Congress responded with $1 billion for building campgrounds, hotels, restrooms and parking lots, fixing deteriorating roads and establishing visitor education centers.
Today, some of the most overwhelmed places like Zion, Acadia, Grand Canyon and Yosemite are encouraging (and in some cases, requiring) visitors to park their cars near the entrances and tour the park in shuttle buses. Other approaches to limiting daily visitors, from increasing entry fees or requiring reservations, may be considered at some parks, but will need to be balanced against the founding idea that these parks exist for the publics benefit and enjoyment.
Climate change is presenting new challenges. At Joshua Tree National Park in the Southern California desert, warming nighttime temperatures are steadily reducing the range of the distinctive trees that give the park its name. Across the West, bark beetles, which thrive on warmer winters, are infesting more and more pine trees, turning once-green hillsides into fire hazards. And in northern Montana,
. The parks are providing persuasive evidence that something ominous is happening to our climate.
It has also become clear that boundaries are no longer enough to keep the parks inviolate. Yellowstone and the
in northeastern Minnesota are threatened by proposed mines near their borders. Oil rigs surround Theodore Roosevelt National Park in the North Dakota Badlands. And smog mars the vistas of Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
The parks have become a political target as well. In the West, some politicians are demanding that the federal government return public lands to the states and localities. And there are continued threats in Congress to take away the presidents unilateral authority to protect endangered places under the 1906 Antiquities Act. Places like Grand Canyon and Grand Teton National Parks, most of the Alaskas national parks, and many more, would not have been saved without that law.
Money, too, remains a problem. The parks have endured a history marked more by congressional indifference and occasional hostility than by generosity. A $12 billion backlog for maintenance and improvements awaits funding. Fewer permanent employees now work for the park service than in 2002, even as it administers more parks and deals with record numbers of visitors.
Increased philanthropy can help, but only at the margins. Higher entrance fees may be considered, but they cant fill the widening budget gap; and if fees become too high, they will defeat the whole democratic notion that the parks belong to everyone.
A
estimated that national park visits last year contributed $32 billion to the nations economy (including $16.9 billion of tourist spending in gateway communities) and supported 295,000 jobs. That represents a $10 return on every dollar appropriated to run them.
Whats needed is a public groundswell that translates the peoples demonstrated affection for their parks into action that will safeguard the future of these places. It means demanding that our representatives provide the money needed to take care of these treasured, sacred places.
When he helped lay the cornerstone of Yellowstones arch in 1903, President Roosevelt called the park idea noteworthy in its essential democracy and later wrote that it is one of the best bits of national achievement which our people have to their credit. Building on that achievement, and preserving the parks essential democracy, will be the task of the park services next hundred years.
But without a new generation of park champions who recognize that the legacy they have inherited includes an obligation to nurture it, the park idea which the writer Wallace Stegner called the best idea we ever had will wither away.
For big segments of this countrys
, especially its young people, the parks seem either irrelevant or remote places where they may not be welcomed. Persuading them otherwise will determine the parks future.
Jon Jarvis, the park service director, wants visitors and the park rangers who greet them to more fully represent the faces of America. National parks are no longer just scenic landscapes. They include equally compelling places that preserve the complicated mosaic of our history like national monuments to Harriet Tubman, Csar Chvez and the Stonewall Inn where we can learn and remember what it means to be an American.
These parks belong to all of us. We should all visit them and enjoy them. With more champions of our parks, we can love them to renewed life instead of to death.
After reading the article “Are We Loving Our National Parks to Death? (scroll down below), complete Annotations and Notes exercises 1-5 (see below and in your e text):
Pre-read the article to gather some first impression ideas. Then read the article completely, annotating as you go.
*If you arent able to print a hard copy, carry out the following instructions using a piece of paper and a pen or pencil.
- Double-underline what you believe to be the topic or thesis statement in the article. (The thesis statement is one or two sentences that summarizes the articles main point and tells what its about. The thesis statement can occur anywhere in the articleeven near the end.)
- As you read, underline points that you find especially interesting. Make notes in the margins as ideas occur to you.
- Write question marks in the margin where questions occur to you, and make written margin notes about them, too.
- Circle all words you dont understand. Then look them up! (
- is a good online dictionary and even pronounces words so youll know how they sound.)
- When youre finished, write a quick summaryseveral sentences or a short paragraphthat captures the articles main points.
Place your completed assignment here.