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The Economist Warns that America’s National Park System is in Deep, Deep Trouble

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Does it matter that fewer Americans are interested in visiting Yosemite National Park? Photo by Jon Sullivan via Wikipedia.

It’s always interesting to see how America’s National Park System is portrayed internationally. One way to get a handle on that is to read park-themed articles published on an occasional basis in The Economist. The authoritative English language weekly news and international affairs publication, certainly one of the most respected of the world’s widely circulated periodicals, has a circulation of about 1.3 million. Published by the Economist Group and edited in the UK, The Economist is distributed in over 200 countries around the world. Nearly half of its readership is outside North America.

So, what has The Economist been saying about America’s national parks? Here’s the gist.

(Oh, by the way; when we say that The Economist says this, or The Economist says that, we can’t know exactly who is doing the saying. The publication – which calls itself a “newspaper,” even though it is glossy paper-printed and looks exactly like a newsweekly magazine -- doesn’t believe in bylines.)

The article of interest here is dated July 12, 2008, and bears the “Out of the Wilderness” title. Its main observations, conclusions, and assertions are these:

• Attendance for America’s national parks peaked more than 20 years ago (in 1987).

• Declining attendance at national parks is a well-established, long-term trend, not just a transient event attributable to factors such as abrupt increases in fuel costs.

• The annual attendance declines for California’s Yosemite National Park (9 of the past 13 years) should be considered ominous, given that California is America’s most dependable bellwether state and Yosemite is California’s most attractive park.

• Having become more satisfied with the recreational options available in/near cities, Americans are now less interested in outdoor recreation opportunities in rural, back country, and wilderness locales.

• Americans believe that their national parks are much less entertaining, less user-friendly, and less kid-safe than they should be.

• Hispanics, the fastest growing component of the American population, show little interest in visiting or paying for national parks; since Hispanics will soon account for 20-25 percent of country’s population, this should be a matter of great concern.

• International tourists are taking up much of the slack created by diminished park-visiting interest on the part of Americans. By implication, the National Park Service needs to work much harder attracting and pleasing them.

• The National Park Service does not understand the implications of declining attendance and has failed to effectively address the issue.

• Environmentalists pose the greatest obstacle to restoring national park attendance to historically higher norms; by blocking needed convenience- and entertainment- related developments in the parks, environmentalists have taken away the main tool for increasing park attractiveness.

• As national park visitation continues to decline, Americans will become less willing to see their tax money spent to improve the national parks and expand the National Park System.

Well, there you have it. Not very pretty, is it?

You’ll be reading more about the referenced trends and issues in Traveler. Remember, I’m not vetting this article's observations and conclusions at this time, just drawing them to your attention as an indication of how the international press is reporting on America's national parks, “the best idea America ever had.” Perhaps you’d like to comment.

Incidentally, if you should happen to read the entire article in The Economist, you will find an absolutely bizarre statement that reads like this: "Were it not for British and German tourists enjoying the weak dollar, the parks would be desolate." Folks, that has got to be one of the most asinine statements about our national parks that I have seen in recent years, and I have seen some beauts. What were they thinking?!

Comments

Um, good??

The NPS system's primary mission, IMO, is the preservation of undamaged natural ecosystems, unique natural features, and sites of national historic importance. What better way to preserve a site than have fewer visitors tromping around them?

The thought that fewer people supporting the parks = less public funding to keep the parks healthy is a problem, but I'm not terribly upset that fewer people visit them in the first place.

When I hear that "we need to increase attendance at the parks", all I see is the government turning these national treasures into little Disney Worlds, where we clear-cut acres of old-growth to put up rides and let ATVs run rampant and let people shoot stuff. I'd rather have them be pockets of wilderness devoid of human activity.

Maybe I'm just being extra-cynical this evening ...

==================================================

My travels through the National Park System: americaincontext.com


Barky takes The Economist's point that the 'anti' policies of environmentalists have reduced Park attendance one step further, by describing them as "good".

I in turn will take Barky's point an additional step, by describing the attendance-reducing effect of environmentalist policies as "intentional".

It is commonplace to hear & read citizens lament that environmentalists are working to drive people from public facilities. I'm not saying anything new, by noting that environmentalists take up many supposedly protection-motivated causes, as surreptitious proxies to discourage & impair public use to the Parks.

I will diverge from The Economists interpretation that present trends will lead to further declines of public interest in the Parks, though, and will instead predict that environmentalist-instigated deprecation of the public & human role of Parks and other national lands will accelerate the decline of environmentalism in national politics.

Even here in the pages of The Traveler, I read comments openly dismissive of the role of democracy & representation in the setting of our Parks' and National policies.

I will diverge from The Economist's conclusions, by predicting that is the environmental movement, rather than our Park system, that is in "deep, deep trouble".


I agree with most of the comments above. I can add some commentary on the notion that International visitors are picking up the attendance slack. In early August 2008 I visited Yosemite and Sequoia and it was EXTREMELY rare to hear any English speaking visitors on all the walks to the points of interest or at visitor centers. I honestly felt like I was somewhere in Europe.


Frank expresses a sincere disdain for entertainment, and perhaps for people who seek it. Actually, though, entertainment is a normal, healthy human behavior. Our propensity for and capability to create settings for entertainment and the social & psychological rewards it brings, is one of the more attractive things about humans.

The enjoyment of entertainment is not the mark of a depraved or deviant person.

The culture of new Mexican Americans may be a generation or two out of step with white, environmentalist America ... but we know that not so long ago, the now purified & worthy 'good' Americans flocked to the bleachers to watch Yellowstone Rangers feed garbage to fighting bears at the dump. Real classy, those 'good' Americans. So the Mexicans threw down their litter - they should "stay out"? I have to think there is a more winning approach.

These sorts of attitudes will diminish the long term prospect that the environment movement will be able to effect the better causes & goals that they have taken up.


Actually, though, entertainment is a normal, healthy human behavior. Our propensity for and capability to create settings for entertainment and the social & psychological rewards it brings, is one of the more attractive things about humans.

Ted, I'm sure you appreciate that there are many definitions of "entertainment", and that what is arguably the most attractive trait of humans, our individuality, grants us all the right to define what entertains each of us. I would submit that it is obvious The Economist uses "entertainment" in the context of the referenced article with its grandest Disneyesque connotation. I have friends that save up for years to go to Disneyworld. To me, any location labeled as "Disney" is synonymous with hell on earth. To each his own, and I thank God for the Disney properties for those who favor them, as earnestly as I give thanks for the national parks I visit for precisely the purpose of escaping the social interactions forced upon me daily. You may call me a misanthrope, but I'm not the only one. (Sorry, started channeling John Lennon there.) Frank's frustration with the need to make every square inch of our country entertaining, user-friendly, and kid-safe is not unique to him. We're ever-growing in numbers and our refuges for the entertainment we enjoy are rapidly being taken from us. For now the parks, save for a hundred yard radius around the tourist-trap visitor centers/gift shops, still stand as havens for those seeking the best nature has to offer - sans-society. I pray they continue to be woefully boring.

Now, for an another argument, you can suggest that without an adequate study of how many people Like Frank and me pay taxes, this money shouldn't be used to prop up entertainment-less parks. We can save that for a later day. Being of several minds on that argument, I can't articulate my thoughts at this late hour.

-Kirby.....Lansing, MI


As nearly every individual in this forum has stated the same reaction to this discussion, National Parks were not established for the entertainment and modernization of contemporary America. Well, no sh*t Sherlock. Anyone who would demand our National Parks were "customized" should be deemed insane and sent away - in my mind. But the truth is that the majority of Americans tend towards a disrespectful approach to "animals, nature, wildlife, conservation et al..." Our society grows more intolerably ignorant with every passing day! just turn on the boob tube. It is appalling when someone can pick up a whole bag full of trash on a trail in one of our parks. The only thing that concerns me here is that this lack of interest would generate less tax dollars to fund the maintenance of the parks. My father has worked at Shenandoah National Park for nearly 30 years (getting ready to retire ; ) as a park maintenance crew member - Since Bush began the heavily outsourcing projects a few years back, I think around 9/11 thousands of National Park employees have been laid off and fired. With the amount of employees left there is no way to keep up with maintaining trails going deeper into wilderness, nor is it necessary. Over time there will be less trails, and less visitors in our parks, requiring less maintenance. Which means the parks will generate less "income", however the overhead will continue to decrease significantly. Our National Parks will cost obsolete tax dollars to maintain. It may also be mentioned that it is not a lack of interest of the public towards our National Park system that is the cause; the cause of the decline is the root of that issue, in that the Federal Government did not properly maintain interest in the parks with advertising. And the minimal advertisment they did use merely portraythe parks to be tourist attractions - instead of places of preservation! The Federal Government or ratherpowers above it have influenced the world to behave in ridiculous ways. Unless something is done about this CIA/KGB method of brainwashing to create profits for trillionaires, as in a conscious effort of the masses to reject "public opinion" altering techniques - this world is headed for sh*t anyways, and all of our National Parks will be nuked, and none of this will even matter - but if the world doesn't end soon in fire and brimstone then yes, conservation and global warming are important issues, and "public opinion" regarding these issues needs a major shift in the opposite direction, a task easily achieved by the powers that be ; )


Kirby said:

"Frank's frustration [is] with the need to make every square inch of our country entertaining, user-friendly ...

My distinct impression is that, more accurately, Frank objects that any square inch of a Park unit is developed in line with conventional consumer lifestyles. And, I think Frank is forthrightly expressing the environmentalist norm there - not just his own viewpoint.

Kirby, Frank, Barky: I have lived all my life in the woods of the Olympic Peninsula. I spent a long hitch in the Navy ... got a peek at Florida, upstate Illinois ... a long peek at San Diego and San Fransisco (Oceania, Asia, etc) ... and returned thankfully to the woods. I know the natural estate as relatively few are privileged ... and I seek it, embrace it, and pay the cost of abiding with it, by preference.

If there is anything I have less use for - personally - than rampant Western consumerism, it might be rampant Western corporatism (two sides of the same dubious coin, imo). I share these basic objections & sensitivities of conventional environmentalism, and others.

I am speaking out here against the positions expressed by Barky & Frank, partly to defend the Great Unwashed who are the human victims of the 'anti' sentiment, but also in rebuke & warning to a fallacious and self-destructive modus operandi of the environmental movement.

Environmentalism will do neither me nor the assets it purports to protect any good, if it defames itself and ends up going the way of the Hippies ... which I think is a good description of what is unfolding right now. Environmentalism is on track to become the dissipated, long-haired joke of yesteryear.

Hippies espoused Peace (cool!), Love (yeah!), and Dope. Dope? What kind of stupid trash-talk is that? Had the Hippie movement been able to rid itself of the perverse fetish of drugs, it may have won the world. Seriously. Those of us who were there will testify, it was more powerful & pervasive than environmentalism has ever been. Did I not see John Lennon invoked?

Environmentalism likewise embodies wonderful principles & ideals. And, it has developed an abiding, increasingly snarling hostility toward the culture & society in which it is embedded. It looks at the great diversity of lifestyles which differ from it's own model, and sneers. It looks at the great democratic tradition that gave it birth, and snickers.

Environmentalists have perhaps one fourth the ballot-power needed to enact their viewpoint within a democracy ... and they are progressively setting themselves up as the enemy of the three quarters. Do the math.

The outcome of these (essentially anti-social) environmental policies, postures & attitudes is likely to be rejection by & marginalization within society ... not unlike what happened to the Hippies. Environmentalism is stepping over the line, and the Sleeping Giant appears to be waking.

People who love and are committed to environmentalism really ought to do some serious reflection soon ... and toss the bong before their dreams go up in smoke.


Ted,

I can empathize with your frustration with the environmentalist movement. I cringe at the public actions of environmental groups that only serve as fodder for the "environmentalist wackos" commentaries on Rush Limbaugh's show. No one's going to make an environmentalist of Limbaugh, but a lot of mainstream America is repulsed by comments that are seemingly or genuinely misanthropic. That's why my money goes to groups like the Nature Conservancy, an organization built more on principles of true conservation than Ed Abbey-style "set fire to the billboards" - even if that means (gasp!) sleeping with the corporate enemy now and then.

I can't speak for Barky and Frank, but my reaction to the entertainment comments was born of the sentiment you accuse Frank of holding - that the parks are for people seeking distance from Disney and Hollywood and Microsoft, and that not an inch (beyond the visitor centers, that actually make some serious effort at education) should be sacrificed to these conventional consumer lifestyles for the sake of attracting more visitors that won't appreciate anything outside of the entertainment complexes anyway. I suspect a higher percentage of land in this country is already devoted to consumerist entertainment than the percentage of folks who prefer such entertainment over the kind you and I enjoy. I will take your point that the message mustn't be snarling, sneering, or snickering, but I won't concede that parks must be comprised to any further extent than they already are. I don't know that you're saying that either. Your gripe is more with the delivery than the message?

The problem here is that the situation for the preservation of wilderness and nature is dire. Measured words and compromises will end with defeat of the minority. In my opinion, the great diversity of lifestyles you speak of, while certainly a beauty of humanity, are not compatible with great diversity and vitality of the natural world given population growth run amok. Those who love land unsullied by human hands are left to vehemently defend the last refuges and/or rail against population growth. Both of those courses are likely to marginalize us, unless we find some means of inciting a respectable passion without writing the new Monkey Wrench Gang. I'm not sure how that's going to happen.

And, having just returned from ten glorious days in ONP and the San Juan Islands, let me say that I envy you for every day you get to spend out there. When finances allow, I hope to join you. I need to milk a little more cash out of corporate America first, hoping the monster will fund my own escape from it

-Kirby.....Lansing, MI


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