The battle we have fought, and are still fighting, for the forests is a part of the eternal conflict between right and wrong, and we cannot expect to see the end of it...The fight for the Yosemite Park and other forest parks and reserves is by no means over; nor would the fighting cease, however much the boundaries were contracted. Every good thing, great and small, needs defense. The smallest forest reserve, and the first I ever heard of, was in the Garden of Eden; and though its boundaries were drawn by the Lord, and embraced only one tree, yet even so moderate a reserve as this was attacked.
-John Muir
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| An Example of North American Forest and Mountain Range Source: Americanforests.org |
When the United States set aside land for the world's first national parks, the country changed how people interacted with nature forever. During the era of American expansion, when land was being purchased, settled, and developed at unprecedented rates, environmentally conscious citizens sought to protect places that they deemed to have natural and inherent beauty. Thanks to the efforts of men and women like John Muir and Theodore Roosevelt, these places were cordoned off from the bulldozer that was industry. Surveys were completed, boundaries were drawn, and political fences were erected in the hope that such wildlands would remain free and pure. The effort was deemed a huge success; the national parks became a part of the American identity and documentarian Ken Burns declared them "America's best idea." Yet the matter is not settled. Official words on paper and good intentions are not enough to keep our landscapes safe.
Forces, both natural and man-made, continue to conspire to endanger the scenery that our predecessors set aside. Agencies and groups labor desperately to preserve environments in the same conditions as our ancestors found them. With encroaching forces like climate change and pollution assaulting them constantly, such endeavors can seem to be an uphill battle. To be blunt, our efforts to preserve in an era of change are impossible tasks.
Preservation, in the vein of its nineteenth-century creators, is an indefensible goal. Its central ideas of a self-maintaining wilderness and ideal static sceneries are flawed and need to be done away with. Wilderness, as defined by the Wilderness Act of 1964 as "an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor," does not exist. Man's reach now extends beyond his gaze. Though a region may appear remote, wild, and unspoiled, it is always threatened by the same impinging forces that jeopardize every other part of the planet. To be successful in our mission to protect natural scenery, we must do away with antiquated notions about change and set new priorities for our lands.
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| Nature is always closer than we think Source: Taunya Fagan Bozeman Real Estate |
We have a tendency to think of nature and wilderness as some "other" place. We live in our cities, towns, and villages while nature is "out there" and far away from our daily lives. As long as the political walls around nature are strong and we pick up our litter when we visit, we believe that nature will carry on being just beyond the horizon. But this is not the case. The planet is an ever-changing and ever-connected ecosystem. As the human-dominated spaces constantly evolve to the influences of politics and technology, so do the more wild and remote places, albeit at different rates. This inherent dynamism must be accepted. We must also accept that human influence is an unavoidable certainty on our modern planet. As Peter White and Susan Bratton wrote in a recent article, "Two paradoxes are apparent: (1) our goal is to preserve systems that must change and (2) managing for preservation itself introduces human influence into natural systems even when its sole purpose is to correct or prevent human-related damage."
Although this may seem like a pessimistic approach, adopting such a mindset makes our goals of protection more attainable. If we stop resisting any and all possibilities of change, then we can reassess and prioritize threats to natural areas. We can be harder on more preventable pressures, such as hiking erosion and littering, while being more forgiving on others, such as flooding and wildfires.
This would not be the first time that the National Park Service (NPS) adapted its methods in light of changing circumstances. Nathan Stephenson, a scientist employed by the Park Service, describes three eras of the NPS's history. The first began in 1916 and was the era of spectacles. During this era, the primary motivations of the NPS were tourism and scenery. They preserved popular natural sights and provided falsified spectacles, such as bear feeding and bison stampedes, for the eager public. The parks were more for the visitors' sake than for the wildlife that lived within. The following era is known as the Leopold era and began in 1963 after Aldo Leopold published a report that lambasted the Park Service for not being more scientifically centered. In response, the emphasis of the parks was shifted towards the preservation of ecosystems and the creation of what Leopold referred to as "vignettes of primitive America." Although there was a dramatic shift in priorities between the first and second eras, they were similar in that both eras sought to preserve landscape and scenery as they were.
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| Aldo Leopold, Considered the Father of Ecology Source: The Aldo Leopold Foundation |
Paradoxically, even as we accept more change in our protected regions we must also increase rates of intervention. There are many rates of change that we cannot allow and species that would perish if we do not step in. Unfortunately, it is beyond the capabilities and resources of our government and public to protect every threatened species, so hard choices must be made. William Tweed, another National Park Service employee, believes that these decisions should be made around resistance and resilience. In this instance, resistance refers to a species' ability to resist stress and resilience refers to its ability to recover from stress. Species that possess both of these qualities should be afforded more resources because they have a higher probability of surviving in the face of growing global crises. Thus, even if a species is badly endangered, if it is not a hardy species then perhaps the difficult decision should be made to allow it to go extinct.
Such decisions do not stop at the species or even the population level; our country must also decide how to best manage different places according to how we value them. William Tweed offered three management styles that can be applied to any park or reserve that would be appropriate in the third era of resource management. The first is "managing for change," which would involve studying ecosystem and landscape change and managing in a way that preserves species that we value. This approach would be proper for most of our valued national parks, like Yellowstone. The second approach is "wildness value"; in this approach, the managers step back from active management and allow the natural systems to evolve as they will. Any changes that occur will be thought of as a success. This approach is relevant for areas that are more remote, less valuable, or just less visited. The final approach is "ecosystem museum"; this costly approach is to be reserved for only the most politically valuable sites in our park system, like Old Faithful and the Giant Sequoias. These sights would be protected regardless of changes affecting them because they hold high political and social power for the park service or other conservation organizations. Ecosystem museums are only possible with small individual landmarks. Protecting entire areas or parks that way would be expensive and foolhardy.
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| A Grove of Giant Sequoia Trees Source: National Geographic |
It is an unwelcome truth that the antiquated notion of wilderness is no longer a reality. While there may be places on the planet where no humans reside or travel, the influence of our species is felt on every corner of the globe. These influences have caused massive changes to our planet's ecosystem that cannot be reversed or stopped. We must then let go of the fanciful notion of preserving our natural spaces in a primeval state. In its place, we must implement a system of active management that controls the changes so that the resources and species that we hold dear can be protected and conserved. Our national parks remain our country's best idea, but we must always strive to develop and expand our creation in the face of changing circumstances.
I will end with the words of Nathan Stephenson, who's conclusion at the end of his essay offers an incredibly optimistic viewpoint that we could all stand to adopt.
It is normal to feel overwhelmed, at least initially, at the prospect of managing national parks and their natural resources in an era of rapid and unprecedented global changes. At a personal level, many of us need to grieve the passing of the Leopold era and the loss of some of its ideals, and then become secure in knowing that the broad outlines of a new vision are beginning to emerge. Indeed, each of us can contribute to the evolution of this new vision. We do not need to figure out everything at once; we can start with small experimental steps, learning as we go.
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