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The national park system has been hailed as one of America's best ideas, to protect and manage the crown jewels of our wildest places and our national history for the enjoyment of present and future generations. However, in recent years parks have become synonymous with something else: massive crowds.
Kyle Paoletta, a freelance writer from Albuquerque wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times over the weekend arguing for the creation of more parks precisely because the ones we have are at risk of being loved to death. As Paoletta writes, "More than 327 million people visited the public lands managed by the National Park Service in 2019, and, after a brief, pandemic-prompted respite, the system is again straining to accommodate the hordes of Americans yearning for a little fresh air after more than a year spent mostly indoors." As an example, the superintendent of Grand Teton National Park, Chip Jenkins says that since last August, “Every month except one has been record-setting.” Yellowstone, one of the nation's most iconic national parks, received a million visitors in a single month this summer.
As Paoletta writes in the Times, the best way rebalance the fact that there are too many people concentrated in too few places is to create more national parks. Senator Angus King, Chairman of the Subcommittee on National Parks agrees that the creation of new national parks is one way to ease the pressure on our existing parks, saying, "If you’ve got a demand problem, one way to solve it is to increase supply. That’s Economics 101." This rationale coincides nicely with the Biden administration's "America the Beautiful" proposal to conserve 30% of America's lands and waters by 2030, which could include the creation of new national parks, as well as national monuments, national wildlife refuges, and state and local conservation areas.
New podcast! Prof. Mark Squillace on the future of oil and gas leasing
University of Colorado law professor Mark Squillace returns to The Landscape for a look at the future of oil and gas leasing on America's public lands. We also welcome the newest member of the Center for Western Priorities team, Kate Groetzinger.
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It’s a very frustrating place to be where we have recurring health emergencies without sufficient means of responding to them. You can be in your office just breathing smoke and thinking you’re OK because you’re inside, but you’re not.”
