Final Centennial Thoughts

George Wright Forum, 2007

Science, Conservation, and National Parks, 2017

On 25 August 1916, the National Park Service Organic Act was signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson, thereby establishing the agency and its mission in a mere 731 words. The key mission, still in force today, is “to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.” Since then, the demographic, social, political, environmental, and economic landscape of the United States has dramatically changed. This strategic discussion, which transpired at the Berkeley summit “Science for Parks, Parks for Science” on 26 March 2015, focuses on the legacy of the National Park Service mission, its relevance in the 21st century, and protected area management.

Alles Heritage,, 2016

Built Heritage

As one of the oldest and best-known park systems, the US National Park System continues to influence park systems around the world. However, the origins and wide diversity of US national parks are often not fully understood as there is a long-lived misconception that the large western parks represent the entirety of the US National Park System. In fact, the establishment of the first US national parks was heavily influenced by large 19 th-century picturesque urban parks that provided benefits to the public and society. The foundational concept of national parks serving a public purpose has never changed, however, the types of landscapes selected as national parks have changed as societal values have evolved and now the system provides public benefits beyond those originally envisioned. This paper examines the development of the US National Park System, emphasising the evolution of landscape values. The emergence of the cultural landscape concept illustrates the evolution of landscape values from their early antecedents in the late 19 th century to their contributions to innovative conservation strategies today. Throughout the development of the US National Park System, international exchange has and continues to play a pivotal role, advancing the inter-linkages of culture and nature for the most effective conservation.

T anniversary in 1991, was established to preserve areas of outstanding scenic, geological, and historical significance. Since 1916, the national park system has grown to include 357 diverse areas, only 50 of which are called national parks: others are monuments, seashores, recreation areas, historic sites, or other designations. These protected areas resemble state and local parks in providing recreational opportunities; however, the standards for admitting lands into the national park system differ from those at the state or local level and have indeed changed significantly since the establishment of the Park Service. From revealing the uniqueness and grandeur

Crm Cultural Resources Management, 1993

elcome to the second thematic issue of CRM dedicated to cultural/historic landscapes 1. This edition has been prepared in conjunction with the first International Symposium on the Conservation of Urban Squares and Parks to be held in North America (May 12-15, 1993) and includes 14 contributors from across the United States and Canada. The past decade has yielded significant advancements in the park conservation and landscape preservation movements. The first "modern" park conservancy, The Central Park Conservancy, was founded in 1980, and many have followed. There has also been a succession of technical publications on the registration, identification, evaluation and treatment of landscapes such as historic parks. 2 Yet a reality check is still in order. As architectural critic Ada Louise Huxtable stated just months ago, "In recent years a shift has taken place in the way we perceive reality, a shift so pervasive that it has radically altered basic assumptions about art and life.... It has instantly recognizable characteristics-an emphasis on surface gloss, on pastiche, on the use of familiar but bowdlerized elements from the history of design, on tenuous symbolism and synthetically created environments... I do not know just when we lost our sense of reality or interest in it, but at some point it was decided that the evidence of the built world around us was not compelling; that it was possibly permissible, and even desirable to substitute a more agreeable product. Once it was decided that reality was disposable, its substance could be revised, manipulated and expanded." 3

In the age of industrialism, wilderness is the counterbalance to human excesses and the inspiration for environmental activists. Today, wilderness is even more important and contested as people face multiple environmental crises on a planet with an exploding human population and voracious consumer appetite. Too often obscured by the technosphere that engulfs us, wilderness awaits its ecoteur filmmakers to give it greater presence on the public screens of the technoscape. After The National Parks: America’s Best Idea, wilderness still waits. By treating wilderness as an historical relic and vacation spot, the film saps it of its vital relevance and political power. Audiences must understand the foundational role of wilderness in their lives, instead of being pacified with an history drained of color that disconnects them from wilderness. As people wonder if there is a future for industrial civilization, wilderness provides the last best hope for rethinking our place on earth.

ABSTRACT Understanding and enhancing societal support for national parks is critical for their survival globally, especially in the uncertain and rapidly changing economic and political environment of the 21st century. This paper argues that the continuing availability of a diversity of visitor experiences in national parks is essential for cultivating this support. Employing national park experiences as key tools for building and sustaining societal support, and the strategies for doing so, have received limited attention by scholars. This paper aims to conceptualize the benefits and threats to visitor experiences in national parks as a basis for cementing their protection and enhancement into park management practices. It does this by drawing on literature investigating the benefits of visiting parks as a theoretical and empirical foundation for identifying the range of visitor experiences that need to be saved from extinction. Principles for endangered species management, derived from conservation biology, are then used as a conceptual lens to examine the threats to these experiences. A values-based perspective suggests the need to both address threats to these experiences and foster the associated benefits to visitors and society. A suite of management strategies at the park/site level and systems level are suggested to reduce threats to the quality and diversity of visitor experiences as well as enhance the benefits of visiting national parks. These strategies can be engaged to complement rather than replace the current impact-focused approach to managing the visitor experience. Concluding recommendations for future research include: clarifying the threats to the visitor experience globally and the synergies between them, exploring the relationship between the management of settings in national parks and the accrual of benefits, and initiating and analyzing the efficacy of interventions designed to maintain and enhance the benefits of visiting national parks. Such initiatives are central to both saving the visitor experience from extinction and for building and sustaining support for national parks in the twenty-first century. Keywords: National park; threat; extinction; benefit; value; support

William Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review, 2009

noting that NPS is generally a "well regarded" agency "and has a reputation for carefll stewardship"). NATIONAL PARK LAW IN THE U.S. United States "embody and symbolize our rich national heritage" 3 and have inspired the creation of protected areas around the world. 4 Preparing to celebrate its 100th anniversary in 2016, the U.S. National Park Service ("NPS") has grown from its famous inaugural parks (Yosemite in 1864' and Yellowstone in 18726) to over 390 park system units nationwide, today covering 83 million acres.' The American national park system has much to offer to other countries seeking to create a unified system of parks,'

Environmental Management, 1978