essay on national parks

Why Are National Parks Important? Environmental, Social, and Economic Benefits

Olivia Young is a writer, fact checker, and green living expert passionate about tiny living, climate advocacy, and all things nature. She holds a degree in Journalism from Ohio University.

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Since the National Park Service was established in 1916, its impact on American culture, the U.S. economy, and biodiversity has been significant. National parks, it turns out, have as much power to transform a sleepy community into a bustling tourist attraction as they do to pull an endangered species out of near extinction. The NPS currently manages 84 million acres of public lands —in the form of monuments, memorials, parks, preserves, historical sites, recreation areas, and more—across all 50 states and some offshore territories.

Here's a glimpse at the many economic, environmental, and social benefits they provide.

Economic Benefits

For every dollar taxpayers invest in the NPS, approximately $10 is returned to the U.S. economy. A 2019 Visitor Spending Effects Report revealed that U.S. parks generated $41.7 billion for the national economy, $800 million up from the year before. Together, they contribute seven times more than Disneyland and only about $10 billion less than the total annual economic impact of the Las Vegas tourism industry. What's more, half of that $41.7 billion was spent not in the parks themselves but in local gateway communities within a 60-mile radius.

Visitors collectively spent $7.6 billion on lodging (hotels, motels, bed-and-breakfasts, and campgrounds), $5.3 billion on food (from local restaurants, bars, supermarkets, and convenience stores), $2.16 billion on fuel, $2.05 billion on recreation, $1.93 billion on retail, and $1.68 billion on transportation in 2019. Their dollars directly supported 340,500 jobs and contributed $14.1 billion in labor income, $24.3 billion in value added, and $41.7 billion in economic output.

A Success Story: Los Alamos, New Mexico

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The NPS's takeover of northern New Mexico's Valles Caldera and Manhattan Project laboratory in 2015 is proof of what national park—and, in this case, national  preserve —status can do for small-town economies. Valles Caldera, a 14-mile-wide volcanic depression in the Jemez Mountains, first received federal protection as a trust in 2000. It was meant to be a 15-year experiment "through which the U.S. Congress sought to evaluate the efficiency, economy, and effectiveness of decentralized land management."

At the end of the study in 2015, federal protection of the Valles Caldera had been so successful, both environmentally and financially, that the NPS took it over permanently. At the time, this move alone was expected to generate $11 million in economic activity (plus $8 million in wages, which would support about 200 local jobs). Most of this would benefit the nearby town of Los Alamos, whose primary breadwinner was (and still is) a military laboratory. Coincidentally, the town received another NPS designation that same year, the Manhattan Project National Historical Park.

In 2016, Valles Caldera National Preserve received 50,000 visitors, a 10% increase from the year before and five times more than the Manhattan Project National Historical Park, which brought in a reported $728,000 to local gateway regions. Visitor numbers in Los Alamos jumped from 336,593 to 463,794 that year and have been rising steadily since. While the town has never outlined the direct economic benefits of both these properties, its 2018 Tourism Strategic Plan noted that spending in national park gateway regions throughout New Mexico rose from $81.1 million in 2012 to $108.4 million in 2016—and the only new NPS properties to crop up in that window were Valles Caldera National Preserve and the Manhattan Project National Historical Park.

Today, tourism is a major economic driver for Los Alamos, home to a growing population of about 19,000. The 2018 plan expressed a need for increased lodging supply and enhanced guest experiences, positioning its proximity to three national park properties as "a critical way to promote tourism." 

Environmental Protection

As a federal bureau in the U.S. Department of the Interior, the National Park Service must preserve park resources and values by law. The Organic Act, the very act that established the NPS in 1916, says the agency's purpose is "to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein."

In addition to the Organic Act, the NPS is bound by a wealth of laws designed to protect wildlife and the environment. Among them are the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act of 1968, which preserves select rivers that have historical, geologic, scenic, or cultural value; the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, which directs federal agencies to make decisions that minimize environmental degradation; and the Endangered Species Act of 1973 , which ensures NPS activities don't further threaten vulnerable plant and animal species.

In order to carry out these laws, the NPS receives a budget of more than $2 billion per year—part of that goes toward the employment of scientists who study ecosystem restoration, invasive species, wildlife health, and exotic plant management in the parks. U.S. national parks currently provide habitat protection for some 400 threatened or endangered plant and animal species. It also oversees the protection and preservation of more than 76,000 archaeological sites and 27,000 historic and prehistoric structures.

Endangered Species Recovery

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National parks have played an integral role in the recovery of many threatened and endangered species . One example is the black-footed ferret, once called the rarest mammal in the world. These prairie dwellers began to decline due to habitat loss, decline in prey, and plague in the '60s, almost going extinct by the '80s, but the NPS and Fish and Wildlife Service together with other conservation groups began reintroducing the species into Wind Cave National Park, South Dakota, in 2007. Today, about 40 black-footed ferrets live in the park. Every year, some are captured to be vaccinated against deadly diseases and microchipped for research to promote the growth of the population. 

The NPS has facilitated similar species recovery missions all over the country, such as the Kemps-ridley sea turtle on Texas' Padre Island National Seashore, the California condor in Redwood National Park, and Yellowstone's grizzly bears—whose population grew from 136 to 728 between 1975 and 2019.

Protecting Air Quality

In addition to protecting plants and animals, the NPS also has a responsibility to protect the air in parks . The National Park Conservation Association says air pollution is, in fact, among "the most serious threats" to national parks. The  Clean Air Act of 1970 requires national parks to abide by the National Ambient Air Quality Standards laid out by the Environmental Protection Agency. This includes minimizing six major pollutants—carbon monoxide, lead, nitrogen dioxide, ozone, particulate matter, and sulfur dioxide—that can cause harm to plants and animals or compromise visibility.

National parks combat air pollution by investing in the technology to monitor air quality, working with policymakers to reduce pollution outside national park boundaries, and minimizing energy use within parks (through improving public transportation and, in some cases, switching to solar power).

Social Benefits

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The Organic Act of 1916 states that a national park's purpose—in addition to conserving scenery, history, and wildlife—is "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." The 84 million acres safeguarded by the NPS benefit the American public as much as they benefit the land itself. They also provide access to outdoor recreation where green space is scarce—for instance, the Gateway National Recreation Area in New York City, Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco, and the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

Studies have long supported the idea that access to green space can help reduce crime in urban environments. They also show that spending time in nature can improve health and happiness .  One recent study by the National University of Singapore found that social media photos tagged #fun, #vacations, and #honeymoons were more likely to feature nature than not to. It also found that nature featured more heavily in #fun-tagged photos taken in countries rated high in the United Nations' 2019 World Happiness Report, such as Costa Rica and Finland.

On a broader scale, national parks can impact community infrastructure. They bring tourism to gateway regions—leading those regions to develop medical centers, provide more access to healthy food, and improve roads and services—and those regions also sometimes receive federal funding for improvements. Take, for instance, the Gardiner Gateway Project, in which the Department of the Interior, the NPS, and local Montana agencies joined forces from 2014 to 2017 to improve pedestrian safety, traffic congestion, parking, lighting, roads, public restrooms, and signage in the small town of Gardiner, located at Yellowstone National Park's North Entrance.

Impact on Indigenous People and Culture

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Indigenous tribes and national parks have had a turbulent history. According to Cultural Survival, an indigenous-led NGO, the creation of national parks has denied indigenous people their rights, "evicted them from their homelands, and provoked long-term conflict." The organization cites the extermination of the Miwok people for the establishment of the country's first national park, Yosemite, and the removal of many tribes from what is now Yellowstone.

In recent decades, however, the International Union for Conservation of Nature and its World Parks Congress have stepped in to help preserve the culture and protect the rights of Indigenous communities that historically relied on these public lands. Cultural Survival notes the importance of the IUCN's Kinshasa Resolution of 1975, which dissuaded governments from displacing Indigenous peoples in protected areas and called on them to instead maintain and encourage traditional ways of living.

Today, while there is still work to be done for national parks to be mutually beneficial to their early inhabitants and the general public, the NPS has taken steps to make amends. Grand Canyon National Park is a good example, as Indigenous communities have started integrating into the tourism industry, acting as guides and artists within the park.

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" Los Alamos Tourism Strategic Plan ." Los Alamos County . 2018.

" National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) ." National Park Service.

" National Park System Timeline ." National Park Service.

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" Historic Structures ." National Park Service .

" Ghosts of the Prairie: The Reintroduction of the Black-Footed Ferret ." U.S. Department of the Interior .

" Masked Bandits: Black-Footed Ferrets in Wind Cave ." National Park Service .

" The Story of the Kemp's Ridley ." National Park Service.

" Condor Reintroduction ." National Park Service .

" Clearing the Air ." National Parks Conservation Association .

" National Parks and the Clean Air Act ." National Park Service .

" What Are National Parks Doing for Clean Air? " National Park Service .

" Act to Establish a National Park Service (Organic Act), 1916 ." National Park Service.

" The Impact of Green Space on Violent Crime in Urban Environments: An Evidence Analysis. " International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health . 2019.

" Spending at least 120 minutes a week in nature is associated with good health and wellbeing ." Scientific Reports . 2019.

" Social media, nature, and life satisfaction: global evidence of the biophilia hypothesis ." Scientific Reports . 2020.

" Gardiner Gateway Project ." Park County, Montana .

" Conservation Policy and Indigenous Peoples ." Cultural Survival .

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Essay on National Park

Students are often asked to write an essay on National Park in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on National Park

Introduction.

National parks are special areas set aside by governments. They protect nature and wildlife, offering a safe space for plants and animals to thrive.

National parks are crucial for conservation. They protect endangered species and habitats, helping to maintain biodiversity.

National parks provide recreational opportunities. People visit for hiking, bird watching, and camping, enjoying the beauty of nature.

National parks are also educational. They offer learning experiences about nature and the environment, promoting awareness and respect for our planet.

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250 Words Essay on National Park

National Parks represent the pinnacle of natural preservation and conservation efforts, acting as sanctuaries for flora, fauna, and ecosystems. They provide an essential refuge for endangered species and serve as a living laboratory for ecological studies.

Role in Biodiversity Conservation

National Parks play a crucial role in maintaining biodiversity. They protect habitats from destructive human activities, thereby preserving a wide variety of species. This biodiversity is not just about the survival of individual species; it’s about maintaining the balance of entire ecosystems.

Impact on Climate Change

The role of National Parks in mitigating climate change is significant. Forests within these parks absorb vast amounts of carbon dioxide, making them vital carbon sinks. Additionally, they help regulate local climates and weather patterns, contributing to global climate stability.

Educational and Recreational Value

National Parks provide unique opportunities for education and recreation. They offer an immersive experience into nature, fostering a deeper understanding and appreciation for our environment. This can inspire individuals to adopt more sustainable practices and advocate for environmental preservation.

Challenges and Solutions

Despite their importance, National Parks face numerous threats, including illegal poaching, deforestation, and climate change. Addressing these challenges requires robust legislation, effective enforcement, and public awareness. Collaborative efforts between governments, NGOs, and local communities are crucial for the sustainable management of these parks.

In conclusion, National Parks are invaluable assets that contribute significantly to biodiversity conservation, climate change mitigation, and societal enrichment. Their preservation is a collective responsibility that requires concerted efforts and sustainable practices.

500 Words Essay on National Park

National parks are a testament to the varied and vibrant ecosystems that our planet hosts. They are designated areas preserved by the government for their natural beauty, unique geological features, diverse flora and fauna, and historical or cultural significance. These parks play a crucial role in conserving biodiversity, promoting research, and offering recreational opportunities.

The Concept of National Parks

The idea of national parks originated in the United States in the late 19th century with the establishment of Yellowstone National Park. This concept was based on the belief that certain landscapes, due to their exceptional beauty or unique ecological features, should be preserved for future generations. This idea has since spread globally, with over 4,000 national parks worldwide, each showcasing the diverse natural heritage of their respective countries.

Ecological Significance

National parks serve as vital ecological reservoirs. They protect ecosystems from anthropogenic activities, thereby safeguarding the habitats of numerous species. By conserving biodiversity, national parks contribute to the stability and resilience of ecosystems, which is crucial in the face of climate change and environmental degradation. Moreover, they provide an opportunity for scientists to conduct research and monitor ecological changes over time.

Economic and Social Impact

National parks also have significant economic and social impacts. They attract millions of visitors each year, generating substantial revenue through tourism. This income often supports local economies and contributes to the national GDP. Furthermore, these parks offer recreational activities such as hiking, camping, and wildlife viewing, promoting physical health and mental well-being among visitors.

Challenges and the Way Forward

Despite their importance, national parks face numerous challenges. These include habitat destruction due to illegal activities, invasive species, pollution, and climate change. Addressing these issues requires effective management strategies, robust legislation, and increased public awareness. Furthermore, integrating local communities into park management can ensure sustainable use of resources and foster a sense of ownership and responsibility.

In an era of rapid environmental changes, national parks are more important than ever. They not only serve as a refuge for wildlife but also as a reminder of our responsibility to protect and preserve our planet’s natural heritage. By investing in their preservation and management, we can ensure that these natural treasures continue to inspire and sustain life for generations to come.

National parks are a testament to the beauty and diversity of our natural world. They play a critical role in conserving biodiversity, promoting scientific research, boosting local economies, and providing recreational opportunities. Despite the challenges they face, with effective management and public participation, these parks can continue to fulfill their vital role in our society. As we move forward, let us remember that these parks are not just scenic landscapes but are also essential for the health of our planet and our own well-being.

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Why are National Parks important?

We explain why National Parks are important, and explore the history and benefits of these remarkable areas of natural beauty

If you’ve ever strolled through the silent but mighty redwoods, been dwarfed by the granite behemoth El Capitan or waited for Old Faithful to burst scorching mist through the earth’s surface, you’ve felt the immense power of our National Parks. But beyond stunning landscapes and boundless opportunities for outdoor adventure, did you know that these areas serve important environmental, economic and cultural purposes too? In this article, we explain why National Parks are important and how they benefit you. 

What are National Parks? 

If you were to ask Wallace Stegner, the late American novelist and environmentalist, he’d tell you that "national parks are the best idea we ever had.” National Parks are areas designated for their natural beauty, where conservation of land and wildlife is practiced. 

The seed of the idea for National Parks was most likely planted by some progressive thinking pioneers who traveled to Wyoming in 1870 to witness its now-famous geysers. While some members of the group were interested in exploiting the potential profits of these thermal waters, a lawyer by the name of Cornelius Hedges suggested these hot springs instead be preserved for the enjoyment of others. Soon after, in 1872, President Grant signed the act creating Yellowstone National Park, which is now widely accepted as the world's first National Park.

How are National Parks protected? 

The National Park Service was established in 1916 to consolidate management of America's federal parklands under one agency and today it manages 84 million acres across all U.S. states and territories including 63 National Parks, and serves as a model for other countries around the world.

Our National Parks boast unique geological features, diverse ecosystems and recreational opportunities. They boast an astounding array of topography and ecology, from the deep valley of Yosemite and great sand dunes of Colorado, to the coral reefs of Biscayne and red sandstone rock formations of Arches . The native plant and wildlife in each of these distinctive settings is protected and people from around the world can recreate and learn about history and nature.

Learn more about our national parks in our article on National Park facts .

What is the main purpose of National Parks? 

The primary purpose of national parks is the preservation of the natural environment for the benefit, education and enjoyment of others. In the US, national parks protect areas of natural beauty including the plants and wildlife that live there, and provide access, recreational opportunities and educational programs for people to learn about these natural habitats. 

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Once an area receives National Park status, it means that the area’s resources and landscape will be protected from most development, excepting amenities like access roads, trails and toilets.

Without national park designation, many of our most treasured beauty spots might be lost, either to landowners seeking to develop them for profit or to industries looking to mine precious resources. Designating areas like Rocky Mountain National Park and Zion as National Parks helps keep them safe from development an destruction so that their ecosystems can continue to thrive and so that future generations can continue to enjoy them 

Why do we need National Parks? 

National parks serve a vital role in maintaining ecological biodiversity , supporting our economy and providing cultural preservation and education. 

By nature, National Parks contain a wealth of natural resources such as hydraulic power, minerals, land, timber and thermal waters that many industries would be interested in owning for profit. Industrial interference would make these beauty spots off-limit, not to mention disrupt their native ecosystems and food chains. National Parks are largely free of development and human interference in the natural ecosystems, which means healthy flora and fauna and cleaner air, water and soil. They’re also well-organized to keep hikers on designated trails minimizing destruction of land. 

National parks also serve a vital economic role. US National Parks see approximately 318 million visitors every year who help support the countless communities surrounding the parks, and the NPS estimates it provides some 20,000 full-time equivalent jobs within the parks system, including biologists, engineers, historians, law enforcement officers and curators.  

Finally, National Parks serve an important cultural function, preserving historical sites as well as natural features, providing education and of course the boundless opportunities for healthy recreation – most visitors pack their hiking boots on a visit with plans to explore the 21,000 miles of trails in our national parks. 

Whereas many natural features in the backcountry are off-limits to those without outdoor gear and expertise, national parks are known for providing wheelchair accessible access and trails to geological phenomena such as Lower Yosemite Falls and the Grand Canyon’s north and south rims. 

Visitors to national parks learn about respecting nature and wildlife as well as about the natural environment, which helps foster appreciation of nature, and importantly, entry fees to all national parks are affordable to almost all income levels. All combined, National Parks promote access, equity, education and inspiration to millions of people. 

Julia Clarke is a staff writer for Advnture.com and the author of the book  Restorative Yoga for Beginners . She loves to explore mountains on foot, bike, skis and belay and then recover on the the yoga mat. Julia graduated with a degree in journalism in 2004 and spent eight years working as a radio presenter in Kansas City, Vermont, Boston and New York City before discovering the joys of the Rocky Mountains. She then detoured west to Colorado and enjoyed 11 years teaching yoga in Vail before returning to her hometown of Glasgow, Scotland in 2020 to focus on family and writing.  

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Guest Essay

Give the People What They Clearly Need: More National Parks

By Kyle Paoletta

Kyle Paoletta is a freelance writer from Albuquerque.

Nothing epitomizes the natural splendor of America quite like a national park. The designation evokes images of quiet groves of towering sequoias deep in the Sierra Nevadas, sweeping views of sun-drenched rock formations in the Southwest or waves crashing against granite cliffs in coastal Maine.

Recently, though, national parks have become synonymous not with bucolic retreat but rather a decidedly less appealing phenomenon: crowds.

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. Parks across the country are setting records for visits while landmarks like Old Faithful and Utah’s Delicate Arch have been swamped by picture-snapping vacationers.

Going to a national park in 2021 doesn’t mean losing yourself in nature. It means inching along behind a long line of minivans and R.V.s on the way to an already full parking lot.

Since last August, “Every month except one has been record-setting,” said Chip Jenkins, the superintendent of Grand Teton National Park. More than three million people visited the park in 2019, and Mr. Jenkins estimates that total will reach four million this year.

Yellowstone, whose history as a national park predates the Park Service itself, registered its first month with over a million visitors in July. Its superintendent, Cameron Sholly, is grappling with the impact all those new guests are having on the park’s infrastructure.

“You put a million more people a year in Yellowstone — what does that mean when you’re emptying 2,000 garbage cans five times a day instead of three?” he said. “What does a million more people flushing toilets five times a day do to wastewater?”

So far, federal action on the matter has largely been restricted to last year’s Great American Outdoors Act, which directed money to the National Park Service’s estimated $12 billion repair backlog, as well as President Biden’s recently proposed budget, which would increase the number of full-time Park Service employees considerably for the first time in two decades. Little, however, is being done to resolve the core issue: There are too many people concentrated in too few places.

The best way to rebalance the scale? We need more national parks.

After all, it’s not like the United States has any shortage of sublime landscapes. I grew up in New Mexico, so it’s long been obvious to me that the current assortment of national parks represents a frustratingly narrow cross-section of the nation’s beauty.

While the Grand Canyon and Yosemite’s Half Dome are undeniably magnificent, so too are lesser-known landmarks like the Valles Caldera , a dormant volcano in northern New Mexico whose 13-mile-wide crater is filled by a verdant prairie, and Southern California’s Mojave National Preserve, where the Joshua trees are no less mesmerizing than in their namesake national park. These are just two of the dozens of wilderness areas across the country that are already managed by the Park Service yet remain practically unknown. Redesignating them as national parks could change that overnight.

“There’s a credibility in the national park designation,” said Stephan Weiler, an economist at Colorado State University who published a series of papers in the mid 2000s demonstrating how elevating a preserve to national park status can increase visits.

More recently, Headwaters Economics, a research group based in Montana, issued a report that found an average increase of 21 percent in annual visits at the eight sites that were redesignated as national parks over the past two decades. Those findings are borne out by New River Gorge in West Virginia, which was redesignated last December. A spokesperson for the park estimates that visits have increased by 24 percent in the months since.

The most substantial difference between national parks and monuments is that the latter are created by presidential decree rather than congressional action; indeed, many national parks began as monuments and were only later elevated to their now rarefied status.

Wade Vagias is the superintendent of Southern Idaho’s Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve , an expanse of lava flows and cinder cones about the same size as Yosemite. He thinks that, for many visitors, the word “monument” is something of a misnomer. “It signals that maybe there’s one thing of interest there,” he said. That leads people unfamiliar with the region to think, “Let’s plan on a two-hour stop at Craters of the Moon before we go on to Yellowstone.”

The need for places like Craters of the Moon to be seen as destinations in their own right will only become more acute as the Park Service continues to pursue active visitor management across its busiest sites. Reservations are already required to enter Yosemite and Rocky Mountain, and rangers at Zion recently proposed introducing a lottery for tickets to Angels Landing, a spectacular trail that requires the harrowing traversal of a red rock ridge only a few feet wide.

“You’re going to see more and more of these reservation systems,” Mr. Weiler said. “They’re doing what they never thought they needed to do, which is ration access.”

Rationing access can’t help but push visitors elsewhere. Arches National Park, in Utah, has closed its gates entirely when things get particularly busy, stoking frustration among sightseers who arrive too late in the day to get in. Megan Lawson of Headwaters Economics points out that a family shut out of Arches is naturally going to scramble to find a nearby alternative. “They’re going to use Google and find another destination,” she said, “so we need to anticipate those pressures on surrounding public lands.”

The simplest way to ensure the preserves that absorb those visitors are prepared for the influx is to identify the national monuments closest to the most crowded Park Service sites and reclassify them, thus giving road trippers intent on visiting a national park another appealing option when they realize their initial destination is too busy.

How many of the six million annual Grand Canyon visitors might be enticed to go to Arizona’s similarly majestic Canyon de Chelly if it were a national park rather than a national monument? How many of the hundreds of thousands of eager hikers packing into Zion every month might take a chance on Cedar Breaks instead, especially given its crimson-striped cliffs and bristlecone forests are a mere hour’s drive further into the Utah desert?

Of course, many Westerners will shudder at the notion of under-the-radar gems like Craters of the Moon and the Valles Caldera becoming the next Bryce Canyon or Badlands. Mr. Jenkins, the superintendent of Grand Teton, says the Park Service is constantly having internal debates about the tricky business of alleviating crowding at some sites without overwhelming others.

“Is it better,” he wondered, “to have more people go to some places that are hardened, where we create and manage the capacity to be able to host them and accept the consequences of doing that?”

In some ways it’s a moot question, since many national parks have already reached their limits, leaving less developed public lands vulnerable. Because Grand Teton can’t accommodate everyone who wants to stay there overnight, rangers from the surrounding Bridger-Teton National Forest have been scrambling to respond to the campers who want to pitch tents there instead despite the area not having a comparable amount of tourist infrastructure.

National monuments, then, represent an appealing in-between alternative: already “hardened” sites that many outdoors-minded travelers have never heard of that can still offer an experience every bit as memorable as a brand name park. Neither New River Gorge in West Virginia nor White Sands in New Mexico received additional funding when they were redesignated as national parks, yet officials at both sites say they haven’t had trouble handling the tens of thousands of new visitors they’ve seen this summer.

“There’s a paradox in the national parks,” said Senator Angus King of Maine, who held a hearing on overcrowding across the system last month. “They’re set aside as natural places to be protected forever; on the other hand, they’re for public enjoyment and experience.”

The current situation complicates both sides of that equation, by compromising the Park Service’s conservation mission while also making parks less appealing places to visit. Creating more parks is an easy part of the solution. “If you’ve got a demand problem, one way to solve it is to increase supply,” said Mr. King. “That’s Economics 101.”

Kyle Paoletta is a freelance writer and critic.

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June 1, 2016

Essays Celebrate the Centennial of America's National Parks

New Books for May 2016

By Clara Moskowitz

MILKY WAY glows over Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.

BABAK TAFRESHI  Getty Images

The Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America's National Parks by Terry Tempest Williams. Sarah Crichton Books, 2016 ($27)

The National Park Service was established a century ago this August to protect the U.S.'s natural treasures, historic sites and national monuments. In this essay collection, writer and conservationist Williams chooses 12 of the 410 places that fall under the National Park Service's protection, reflecting on both the history and power of these locales and their personal meaning to her. For instance, Williams grew up exploring Grand Teton National Park with her family and worked at the Teton Science Schools. The parks she features span the nation, from Alcatraz Island in California to Acadia National Park in Maine. They recall both highlights and low points in America's history—from the triumph of the National Park Service as a way to protect wild spaces to the harsher realities of bloodshed at Gettysburg National Military Park and the displacement of native peoples in the name of preservation. — Jennifer Hackett

On supporting science journalism

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The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee. Scribner, 2016 ($32)

Writer Mukherjee's interest in genetics is both professional and personal. He is a doctor and a professor of medicine, and mental illness runs in his family. Through the poignant stories of an uncle and a cousin with schizophrenia, as well as an uncle with bipolar disorder, Mukherjee shows the devastating life consequences for those afflicted and examines the shadow that knowledge of an inherited risk can cast on an entire family.

This background impelled him to write this history of genetics, which spans from Gregor Mendel's 19th-century experiments pointing the way toward the idea of the gene to today, when scientists can easily sequence entire genomes and are experimenting with editing human genes. Mukherjee inspires both awe at how thoroughly genetics allows us to understand our own bodies and selves and wariness at the moral risks inherent in the literally life-changing abilities the field has introduced.

Rise of the Machines: A Cybernetic History by Thomas Rid. W.W. Norton, 2016 ($27.95)

In this book, Rid, a professor of security studies, traces how computers became so ubiquitous and integral to our lives. During World War II, advances such as radar and antiaircraft weapons demonstrated the vast potential of mechanized technology, prompting governments around the world to invest seriously in computing.

In the decades that followed, groups as divergent as the military, hippies and anarchists learned to use new technologies to further their own causes. We have now come to a point, Rid writes, of unprecedented enthrallment with computers at the same time as we are being forced to grapple with the dilemmas they have introduced, such as the increasingly dangerous threat of hacking. In an age when governments and start-ups alike worry deeply about cybersecurity, Rid's account of how the relationship between human and machine developed is quite timely. — J.H .

The Life Project: The Extraordinary Story of 70,000 Ordinary Lives by Helen Pearson. Soft Skull Press, 2016 ($17.95)

Why does a person's life take a particular course? This existential question is also a scientific one because researchers now know that many demographic factors—such as education, sex, race and, especially, economic circumstances—have a profound influence on how our lives turn out.

Scientists study these effects through birth-cohort studies, which periodically record information about the health and welfare of children born around the same time. Of these, the British birth-cohort studies, begun in 1946 and repeated with additional cohorts in 1958, 1970 and 2000, are the longest-running and most comprehensive. Pearson, an editor at Nature , follows the history and revelations of these projects and probes the power of our surroundings to influence human development, as well as the potential for individuals to rise beyond their circumstances.

Clara Moskowitz is a senior editor at Scientific American , where she covers astronomy, space, physics and mathematics. She has been at Scientific American for a decade; previously she worked at Space.com. Moskowitz has reported live from rocket launches, space shuttle liftoffs and landings, suborbital spaceflight training, mountaintop observatories, and more. She has a bachelor's degree in astronomy and physics from Wesleyan University and a graduate degree in science communication from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

National Parks in the US: Existing Issues Essay

The National Park Service has performed for more than a hundred years. Nowadays, it protects more than 400 parks throughout the country (“Federal land acquisition,” n.d.). However, the parks are faced with serious problems that are necessary to address in order to preserve such a vulnerable system. The main goal of this paper is to discuss the existing issues related to national parks in the United States, highlighting environmental policies.

Millions of tourists visit national parks in the United States, and every year this service attracts more and more people. However, the increased popularity of such areas causes various management problems. For example, tourists who come to the Grand Canyon are much more interested in the services that the national park offers rather than in preservation and tourism. Therefore, such parks have become good businesses.

The first significant issue related to national parks is a human impact. The parks need to be preserved for citizens and tourists from all over the world. These areas are popular destinations for a large number of people, but it leads to serious consequences such as environmental damage. The National Park Service had to recycle more than 40 tonnes of waste that was produced by visitors in 2013 (Taylor, 2016). Therefore, the service requires additional support from governments, non-governmental organizations, private companies, and citizens. One of the environmental policies of the National Park Service is aimed at reducing landfill-bound waste. The service specialists develop various strategies to minimize the negative impact of tourists.

Another significant issue is federal legislation related to the environment. Governments have to promote environmental policies in order to preserve national parks. There are different examples of such laws. The Land and Water Conservation Fund Act in 1964 obliged oil and gas companies to spend a part of their revenues on the protection of public lands and waters (“LWCF overview,” n.d). Therefore, such firms had to support federal and local environmental programs. However, Congress often uses this money to fund other projects, which negatively affects the National Park Service.

Biological threats are another important problem. Global development results not only in new environment-friendly technologies but also in serious damage to nature. Ships often bring dangerous species from overseas that spread throughout the country and distribute various diseases. For example, over the past ten years, white-nose syndrome has caused the deaths of approximately six million bats (Taylor, 2016). Global warming is another negative effect of the progress of human civilization. It also creates biological threats within the national parks. For example, the number of glaciers in Montana Glacier Park has become three times lesser than it was a hundred years ago (Taylor, 2016). Similar problems occur in all parks in the country.

In conclusion, the National Park Service promotes the ideas of appreciation for nature. Nowadays, people spend most time indoors, thus they lose the connection with the outside world. The service specialists cultivate conservation ethics to enhance the understanding of the importance of the environment. Therefore, the main goal of this structure is to create a new generation of supporters.

I believe that it is necessary to continue emphasizing the importance of environmental protection. People should spend more time outside, in parks and forests. It is also necessary to teach children about the surrounding world and its problems. Every person can make a positive impact on the environment, and thus it is necessary to support the National Park Service as its policies provide effective measures to address the existing challenges.

Federal land acquisition . (n.d.). Web.

LWCF overview . (n.d.). Web.

Taylor, D. (2016). 4 challenges facing America’s national parks in 2016 . Web.

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Inspiring places: why are national parks so important to the people of Kenya?

When Kenya’s first post-independence leader, Jomo Kenyatta, gazetted what is now known as Nairobi National Park for the exclusive use by wildlife, he had this to say:

“The natural resources of this country – its wildlife, which offers such an attraction to visitors from all over the world, the beautiful places in which these animals live, the mighty forests which guard the water catchment areas so vital to the survival of man and beast – are a priceless heritage for the future."

At the time, and indeed today, the above statement was taken as an indication of the Kenyan government’s plan to tie conservation and tourism to the long-term future of the country. “Priceless”, Kenyatta called our wild spaces, and priceless they have proven themselves.

Also embedded in the above comment, however, is a recognition. With what good protected areas can bring to wildlife, the idea that they must be protected for the good of human beings is also there. Natural spaces are vital, said Kenya’s first President, “to the survival of man and beast.”

Tourism’s importance to the national economy:

When Jomo Kenyatta made the above declaration, protecting Nairobi National Park, he did so in September of 1963, less than a year after Kenya was made a Republic. At the time, with post-independence governments gaining control over the machinery of governance across Africa, leaders such as Kenyatta faced huge decisions.

Not least amongst what must have been a slew of crucial decisions were those that concerned what kinds of country they hoped to create.

There were likely a number of reasons that played their part in the fact that tourism has so lengthily been promoted as a key part of Kenya’s economic growth strategy. For one, the natural beauty and the diversity of fauna here were made internationally famous long before Kenya took the chance to stand on its own two feet.

Today, it is obvious that those decisions have borne fruit. Kenya is, by many metrics, the place to go in search of a safari experience. Picture the golden grasses of a savannah plain, a herd of roaming elephant or any of Africa’s big cats and it’s likely that the impression you’re constructing draws imagery from one of Kenya’s national parks.

Before the pandemic, in 2019, 2.05 million tourists visited the country. On average, they spent $860 each while they were here. That made it a $1.763 billion industry.

Those figures made tourism reflective of 1.8% of Gross National Product. That, perhaps, doesn’t indicate the huge reliance on tourism that has been suggested. However, Kenya, as all developing countries should, has managed to diversify, using its initial reliance on certain industries as a springboard toward greater productivity.

In 1995, tourism revenue represented 8.7% of GNP.

In this changing Kenya, how do communities benefit from conservation in our national parks?

The life and the natural beauty of Kenya’s national parks has been an obvious draw for international tourists, and tourism itself has been of obvious importance to the development of the country. In the reading of statistics such as those presented above, however, it is easy to lose sight of the lived effect on individuals and communities.

Kenya is not an economy, it is not just a state. It is a conglomeration of living, interacting, feeling individuals, comprising different and diverse cultures. Amidst these communities are wild spaces, filled with majestic and, at times, dangerous living creatures.

We are impossibly grateful to our international following. Without their support we would not have been able to play the part we have in advancing elephant conservation in this country. We must, however, also recognise that the protection of African wildlife for them means something entirely different than it does for those who live alongside these wild creatures.

Majestic is how we have often described elephant. Those that neighbour and farm near them might prefer the term ‘menace’. The Tsavo national parks were gazetted not because of the abundance of wildlife that lived here. They were earmarked for protective policies because no human beings lived in the area.

That is no longer the case. Population expansion has made humans neighbours to Tsavo and, therefore, Kenya’s largest elephant population. This has obviously posed challenges.

There are many that would, and do, consider the ability to live alongside elephants as a huge privilege. However, an increasingly large part of the role of conservationists is in reducing the instance rates of friction between humans and their animal neighbours.

Today, with elephant poaching less of a concern in Kenya than it was 30 years ago, a significant portion of our resources now go toward creating a system of cohabitation that benefits human communities whilst also protecting elephants.

In order to do so, an engagement between community members and conservation is vital. As essential in shaping an interest in the subject, is ensuring that that interest does not come with increased risk to human life.

In order to facilitate the first of those priorities, conservationists and wildlife protection professionals first had to prove that conservation does not solely represent a cost to local communities.

As of January this year, through the Tsavo Trust, 40 people from the local Kamungi and Shirango communities have gainful employment. With what we have gained through donations, two teachers have been employed, classrooms have been provided with computers and bursary programmes for further education have been created.

In the drive to promote the second of those aims, it is essential that life lived alongside animals such as elephant is not defined by danger and destruction. In order to accomplish that, donations have brought drinking water sources to the area. They have financed improved functioning from rapid Human-Wildlife response teams. They have brought about the creation of our 10% fence plan; fences that provide protection for crops without limiting the rangeland of roaming animals.

What do communities think of wildlife and life alongside our national parks?

These past years have been difficult ones for Kenyans and wildlife alike. The drought conditions that have been regularly documented brought communities and animals to desperation, and, resultantly, greater conflict.

Elephants, most obviously, were forced out of their regular rangeland in search of water. These marauding creatures, in the search for water, had the potential to undo any good work conservationists had played a part in in building a better relationship between man and beast.

That wasn’t, however, the case.

On World Wildlife Day, this year, Kenya held its annual Magical Kenya Tembo naming festival. The festival was used as a platform for the celebration of wildlife and for the highlighting of new threats to conservation.

Considering the desperation-inducing conditions that have been visited on this country recently, one might have expected dissenting voices as the country’s Cabinet Secretary for Tourism, Wildlife and Heritage, Peninah Malonza reaffirmed a national commitment to protecting wildlife.

That is not what was seen, however. Instead, members from local communities spoke to local press of the fact that tourism and conservation had brought communities closer to wildlife.

A village elder from a village near Amboseli national park spoke of how he and his community “came to realise the benefits [tourism and conservation] has on our people”. “Today,” he went on, “we actually see the wild just the same as our cattle”.

In a time of desperation suffered upon communities the country over, the fact that those who have lost plenty to adverse weather can still stand by the protection of creatures once considered as competition for resources is amazing.

If that doesn’t make Tsavo and Kenya’s other national parks into inspiring places, well, what does?

Article courtesy of Tsavo Trust .

Follow Tsavo Trust on Facebook , Instagram and Youtube to learn more about their work in protecting wildlife and human well-being in the Tsavo National Parks. 

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National Parks

By Seth C. Bruggeman

National parks figure prominently in Greater Philadelphia’s cultural, economic, and natural landscapes.  Morristown (1933), Independence (1948), Valley Forge (1976), and First State (2015) National Historical Parks all preserve and provide access to sites associated with the American Revolution and early American history. Together they welcome nearly six million visitors each year and create more than four thousand jobs in surrounding communities, thereby generating considerable economic activity throughout the region. Alongside other regional units of or supervised by the National Park Service, including historical sites, memorials, heritage areas, historic landmarks, historic properties, an agency headquarters, and a sprawling nature reserve, the national parks reflect a longstanding and ongoing investment by the federal government in protecting the region’s rich natural and cultural resources.

Established in 1916 amid a Progressive impulse to preserve the nation’s scenic treasures, the National Park Service began its work primarily in western states, far removed from the East’s burgeoning population centers.  Agency leaders worked to shift the balance by establishing parks throughout the eastern states and expanding their scope to include sites of historical significance.  Doing so, however, put the National Park Service into competition with state and local preservation organizations, which had spread throughout the country following the Civil War.  Also at odds with this mission was the War Department, which since the 1890s had been charged with supervising national military parks.

Despite the increasingly competitive heritage landscape, National Park Service leaders scoured the region looking for footholds to expand the agency’s stewardship across all federal parks.  Their search led to Morristown , New Jersey, in 1932.  Although no battles ever occurred there, Morristown was storied for its association with George Washington (1732-99) and two encampments of the Continental Army, particularly during the hard winter of 1779-80. Because Morristown was not a battlefield, it was not subject to the War Department’s supervision. Although a private organization formed to protect Morristown’s historic structures during the 1870s, it struggled financially during the 1920s and 1930s despite growing public interest in the site. Against the backdrop of George Washington’s two-hundredth-birthday celebrations in 1932, National Park Service leaders together with local enthusiasts convinced Congress to establish the nation’s first national historical park at Morristown. President Herbert Hoover signed the act into law in 1933.

Morristown was not the agency’s first historical unit—it had established two historical monuments in Virginia in 1930—but was the first to be designated a historical park, which implied a scale and significance akin to iconic wilderness parks like Yosemite and Grand Canyon.  It was a crucial step in prompting a massive reorganization in 1933 that placed all of the nation’s federal parks, monuments, and historic sites under National Park Service supervision. In the Historic Sites Act of 1935 , Congress authorized the agency, for the first time, to seek out and preserve historic sites and properties of particular significance. In this regard, Morristown was a catalyst for creating an expansive history program within the agency that, in coming years, employed corps of researchers, architects, and preservationists.

A Nudge from the New Deal

The impact of the reorganization was immediately evident throughout Greater Philadelphia, in part because of additional initiatives of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. With the country deep in economic crisis , the Roosevelt administration sought to ease anxieties and provide job relief by commissioning a network of recreational areas on past-prime lands bordering the nation’s urban areas. These included nearly six thousand acres reclaimed in 1935 from a centuries-old iron plantation on the border of Chester and Berks Counties forty miles northwest of Philadelphia. Hundreds of men employed by Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps set to restoring old buildings and landscapes so that by 1936, when administration of federal recreation areas passed to the National Park Service, agency leaders inherited a ready-made historic site. Hopewell Furnace National Historical Site entered the system in 1938, only the second historical site designated as such under the Historic Sites Act.

In Philadelphia, meanwhile, citizens motivated by patriotism and concern for the deteriorating urban environment around Independence Hall clamored to leverage the Historic Sites Act to create a national monument encompassing the hall and other buildings associated with the nation’s founding. Making the case for a large park was difficult, however, given a complex web of competing private property interests. The National Park Service made inroads during 1939 when it acquired the old Second Bank of the United States building, just vacated by the U.S. Customs Service and designated it the Old Philadelphia Custom House National Historic Site. In 1942, in South Philadelphia, the National Park Service brokered a cooperative partnership with the stewards of Old Swedes’ Church to establish Gloria Dei Church National Historical Site . In the meantime, a coalition of power brokers including politicians, lawyers, architects, and members of hereditary societies leveraged wartime patriotism toward generating support for a stronger federal presence. It came in 1943 when, with a special presidential waiver of a wartime prohibition against new parks, the National Park Service established Independence Hall National Historical Site . In 1948, having spent the remaining war years haggling over plans with park boosters and city officials, agency leaders and local supporters convinced Congress to authorize Independence National Historical Park.

Though born of World War II , Independence very much embodied the Cold War era.  It was, after all, a park committed squarely to promoting the success of American democracy. Its singular focus on the Revolutionary era conveniently excused it from contending with constitutional failures such as those that prompted civil rights activism in the postwar years.  What’s more, the National Park Service’s development plan literally created the park’s historical  landscape. Throughout the 1950s, bulldozers cleared nineteenth- and twentieth-century buildings to create a mall (initially a state park) north of Independence Hall and a landscaped park extending three blocks to the east. Although some within the agency warned against this approach of displacing people and businesses that did not harmonize with Independence’s historical aesthetic, it reflected the considerable influence of postwar-era urban renewal strategies , which favored “slum” clearance and the expansion of public space in city centers.  In this regard, the National Park Service’s energies in Philadelphia advanced a radical transformation of the city’s landscape that was more broadly coordinated by the City Planning Commission and its executive director, Edmund Bacon (1910-2005). The opening of a restored Independence Hall to the public in 1972 thus reflected Philadelphia’s new cachet as a center of historic preservation, but it also bespoke a new vision for urban life at the end of the twentieth century.

The popularity of that vision during the 1970s owed, in part, to the remarkable breadth of activities associated with the nation’s Bicentennial celebration in 1976.  Bicentennial fervor made Independence a locus of veneration and protest.  But, even beyond Independence, the Bicentennial intensified National Park Service commitments throughout Greater Philadelphia.  A campaign emerged to put Valley Forge State Park —set aside in 1893 as Pennsylvania’s first state park—under federal supervision. Washington’s Continental Army suffered a difficult though transformative encampment at Valley Forge during the winter of 1777-78. Public memory of its travails inspired significant commemoration over the years, but a shifting economy and runaway suburban growth exceeded the park’s capacity to protect its resources. After considerable debate throughout the early 1970s, Congress agreed in 1976 to make Valley Forge the region’s third national historical park.

Many Less-Visible Parks

Large historical parks ranked among only the most visible of National Park Service initiatives throughout the region at the end of the twentieth century.  Bicentennial energies brought Philadelphia’s Thaddeus Kosciuszko National Memorial (the agency’s smallest unit at .02 acres) into the system in 1972 as well as the Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site in 1978. The agency’s capacity to serve the region owed also to the presence of a thriving field office,  established in Philadelphia in 1956. Although the purview and the name of the Northeast Regional Office has shifted over the years, its purpose has been to provide a corps of planners and technicians to nearly eighty parks and other units spread across thirteen states. Its work is not limited to historical units.  Regional officers figured prominently, for instance, in brokering the establishment in 1978 of the New Jersey Pinelands National Reserve across nearly a million acres of ancient forest in southern New Jersey.

The Pinelands project heralded a new direction for the National Park Service favoring cooperative management—with state, local, and private interests—of mixed-use natural and heritage areas rather than exclusive federal control typical of national parks. This strategy   shaped much of the agency’s work throughout the greater Philadelphia area during the early years of the twenty-first century. Beyond sustaining its legacy units, the agency took an advisory role in managing the Delaware and Lehigh National Heritage Corridor (1988), the Schuylkill River Valley National Heritage Area (2000), the Lower Delaware National Wild and Scenic River (2000), the Crossroads of the American Revolution National Heritage Area (2006), and the Washington-Rochambeau National Historic Trail (2009).  In addition, through its supervision of the National Register of Historic Places , the agency provided assistance to hundreds of historic properties and landmarks scattered throughout the region.

The Greater Philadelphia area’s distinctive concentration of natural and cultural resources created significant responsibilities for the National Park Service. Despite dwindling budget appropriations in the twenty-first century, Congress continued to create new units to be managed. In 2015 these included the First State National Historical Park , Delaware’s first national park, which was designated to preserve and provide access to sites associated with colonial Dutch, English, Finnish, and Swedish settlements (reaching also into southeastern Pennsylvania). National politics and regional needs thus mixed again with shifting landscapes and the tides of memory to ensure an ongoing and dynamic role for the National Park Service throughout Greater Philadelphia.

Seth C. Bruggeman is an Associate Professor of History at Temple University.  His publications include an edited volume , Born in the USA: Birth and Commemoration in American Public Memory (University of Massachusetts Press, 2012) , and Here, George Washington Was Born: Memory, Material Culture, and the Public History of a National Monument (University of Georgia Press, 2008). (Author information current at time of publication.)

Copyright 2015, Rutgers University

Ford Mansion, Morristown National Historical Park

Library of Congress

During the Continental Army's second encampment at Morristown, New Jersey, in the winter of 1779-80, George Washington occupied this mansion, built by iron manufacturer Jacob Ford Jr., which later became part of the first national historical park in 1933. Ford had served in the Morris County Militia as a colonel during the Revolutionary War and lent his home to other Continental soldiers before his death in 1777. Ford's wife, Theodosia, invited Washington to use the mansion as a headquarters as the Continental soldiers constructed and stayed in housing five miles south, in an area called Jockey Hollow. The Ford family continued to hold the house until the 1870s, when the Washington Association of New Jersey purchased the property and preserved it as a historic house museum. National Park Service leaders included this mansion, Jockey Hollow, and other sites involved in the Continental Army's camp in Morristown for first national historical park, which was approved by Congress and signed by President Herbert Hoover in 1933.

Touring Independence Hall

A National Park Service ranger tells visitors outside Independence Hall what to expect on the tour they are about to take. Tours of Independence Hall, the centerpiece of Independence National Historical Park, are free, but visitors must obtain timed tickets beforehand at the Independence Visitor Center located about a block away. These people were lined up for the tour in September 2013. (Photograph by Donald D. Groff for the Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia.)

• Gloria Dei Church National Historical Site

In 1942, the National Park Service entered into a partnership with the stewards of Gloria Dei (Old Swedes') Church, near present day Christian Street and Columbus Boulevard, to turn the church into a historic site. Originally a blockhouse constructed in 1677 by Swedish Lutherans who settled along the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers, Gloria Dei replaced a previous church on Tinicum Island. Gloria Dei offered religious services in Swedish, but began to offer English services as more English-speaking immigrants arrived after the establishment of Philadelphia. The church, pictured here in 1937, was constructed over a six-year period starting in 1697 and replaced the older blockhouse church. The main floor of the church opened for services in 1700, but the bell tower took three more years to construct. As more Swedish immigrants moved outside the city of Philadelphia, Gloria Dei created annex churches in modern Kingsessing and Upper Merion to provide closer religious services. The Swedish congregation began to dissipate in 1789, when the congregation at Gloria Dei stopped operating as a Swedish Lutheran mission and added Episcopal practices to its religious activities.

Congress Hall

Visit Philadelphia

For ten years, members of both the House of Representatives and Senate met in the same building at the corner of Sixth and Chestnut Streets. The building was constructed in 1787 as one of two buildings added to the State House Square. Originally designed as the Philadelphia County Courthouse, it was converted in 1790 for the use of the federal congress when Philadelphia became the nation's capital through the Residence Act of 1790. After the federal government moved to Washington, D.C., in 1800, Congress Hall became a county municipal building. It was restored to its 1796 appearance through multiple renovations starting in 1913 and continuing through the twentieth century. The building became part of Independence National Historical Park, authorized by Congress in 1948.

Independence Mall, 1966

PhillyHistory.org

With "non-historic" buildings cleared away, new parks buffered Independence Hall from the city and created a more welcoming environment for tourists.

The President's House

In the first decade of the twenty-first century, the President’s House Site at Sixth and Market Streets attracted new attention and instigated change in the common perceptions of slavery in Philadelphia and in American memory. After much debate and years of planning, the site of the mansion occupied by the first two presidents became a place of commemoration of the legacy of nine enslaved Africans and their continued struggle for freedom in the shadow of an emerging, reputedly equal nation. Like many Philadelphians, George Washington found ways to circumvent the Pennsylvania Law for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery. This law stipulated that slave children born after 1780 were to be freed at the age of 28. Slaves born before 1780 could remain enslaved in the state their entire lifetime and no slaves from another state could be legally brought into the state for more than six months. Washington lived in Philadelphia from 1790 to 1797. In order to keep his Virginia residency and thus his entitlement to hold slaves, Washington was careful that neither he nor his slaves spent the six continuous months in the state necessary to establish legal residency.

In 2000, an excavation associated with the New Liberty Bell Center uncovered foundations of an ice house associated with the President’s House Site. Consequently the National Park Service, prompted by community members and historians, made plans to undertake an archaeological excavation. In 2007, much of the foundation for the main house, kitchen, cellars, and some servant spaces were uncovered as well as the foundation for the bow window, a predecessor to the oval office in Washington, D.C. Though the excavation is finished, it is still accessible to the public. At the center of the President’s House Site is a glass vitrine, which houses elements of the 18th-century structure that were unexpectedly uncovered in the 2007 dig. The archaeological process has attracted more than 300,000 visitors and continues to serve as a public forum for open discussion about freedom, slavery, and the nation’s beginnings. (Photograph by G. Widman)

Text by Kim Coulter

Independence National Historical Park, 2008

Since 2000, the National Park Service has redeveloped the Independence Mall by constructing modern visitor facilities and exhibit spaces for visitors to experience new programming. A designated area for public demonstrations (foreground) was created for citizens to exercise their First Amendment rights or hold small gatherings. A new Liberty Bell Center (background, right) is larger than the previous Liberty Bell Pavilion and includes exhibit spaces in the hall leading to the bell. The Independence Visitors Center (not pictured) was constructed by a nonprofit organization in conjunction with the National Park Service to assist park visitors and connect the park to other historical themes and sites in the Philadelphia region.

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier of the Revolution, Washington Square

Washington Square, before major reconstruction and landscaping in 1825, was an area for animal grazing, public markets, trash dumps, and potter's fields. During the Revolutionary War, thousands of soldiers from the American and British sides were buried in unmarked graves throughout the square, their remains mixed with those of paupers who could not afford official burials. An archaeological dig to confirm the existence of the Revolutionary War graves occurred in 1956, and the Washington Square Planning Committee took steps to build a memorial on the west side of the square. Designed by architect G. Edwin Brumbaugh and completed in 1957, the memorial, pictured here, features a bronze cast of George Washington overlooking an "eternal" flame to honor the memory of the war's unknowns. The National Park Service took control the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in 2005 and absorbed it into Independence National Historical Park. This photo shows the monument in the summer of 2014, when park preservationists were making repairs and cleaning. (Photo by Donald D. Groff for the Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia)

Edgar Allan Poe House

Writer Edgar Allan Poe lived in various apartments in Philadelphia from 1837 to 1844, and since 1978 the National Park Service has operated the only surviving building of his life in Philadelphia as a house museum as part of Independence National Historical Park. Poe and his family only rented an apartment in the rear of this building at Seventh and Spring Garden Streets for about a year in 1843, but the National Park Service uses the building to interpret the entirety of Poe's seven-year life in Philadelphia. The NPS left Poe's apartment rooms untouched and empty, while rooms in the adjacent buildings serve as exhibit space covering Poe's writings and family struggles. (Photograph by Joshua Lisowski for the Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia)

Washington's Headquarters

Valley Forge Historical Park, first established as a state park in 1893, was taken over by the National Park Service in 1976 to preserve the sites of George Washington (1732-99) and the Continental Army's encampment during the winter of 1777-78. Washington’s Headquarters, seen here, has been restored to give visitors to the park a better understanding of Revolutionary War encampments. Quarters for General James Mitchel Varnum (1748-89) and the parade ground where Baron Von Steuben (1730-94) drilled the Continental Army, along with other important historic structures and landscapes, are available to park visitors year-round.

Trails in Valley Forge National Park

As hiking and other outdoor recreation became popular after World War II, organizations such as the National Park Service created better conditions and greater access to trails for visitors who primarily came to protected historical areas for outdoor recreation. More than twenty miles of trails throughout the fields and forests in Valley Forge National Park are open to hikers, bikers, and equestrians during the nonwinter months. This image from Valley Forge shows the Joseph Plumb Martin Trail, a paved trail that connects the park’s historical sites. (Photograph by R. Nowitz for Visit Philadelphia)

Delaware Canal State Park

Beginning in the 1950s, several of the region’s canals were resuscitated as tourist sites and historical landmarks. Towpaths now serve as bucolic multipurpose trails, and the canal waters and vegetation along the paths harbor many forms of wildlife. Some old locks have been restored as sites of industrial heritage. For example, the Delaware Division Canal became a state park in the 1950s (now known as the Delaware Canal State Park). Several parts of the Delaware & Hudson Canal are now protected by the National Park Service. (Photograph by Reflections by Ruth Photography)

Related Topics

• Greater Philadelphia
• Philadelphia and the Nation
• Philadelphia, the Place that Loves You Back

Time Periods

• Twenty-First Century
• Twentieth Century after 1945
• Twentieth Century to 1945
• Center City Philadelphia
• Public Parks (Philadelphia)
• Independence National Historical Park
• Valley Forge
• Brandywine Valley

Related Reading

Collins, Beryl R., and Emily W. B. Russell, eds. Protecting the New Jersey Pinelands: A New Direction in Land Use Management . New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1988.

Cullinane Thomas, C., C. Huber, and L. Koontz. 2013 National Park visitor spending effects: Economic contributions to local communities, states, and the nation . Natural Resource Report NPS/NRSS/EQD/NRR—2014/824. Fort Collins, Colorado: National Park Service, 2014.

Mackintosh, Barry. The National Parks: Shaping the System . Washington: U.S. Department of the Interior, 1985.

Mires, Charlene. Independence Hall in American Memory . Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002.

Morristown National Historical Park. General Management Plan and Environmental Impact Statement , 2003.

Olsen, Russ.  Administrative History: Organizational Structures of the National Park Service, 1917 to 1985 , 1985.

Robinson and Associates Inc. Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site Historic Resource Study , 2004.

Treese, Lorette. Valley Forge: Making and Remaking a National Symbol .  State College: Penn State Press, 1995.

Unrau, Harlan D. and G. Frank Williss. Administrative History: Expansion of the National Park Service in the 1930s .  Denver: National Park Service Denver Service Center, 1983.

Unrau, Harlan D.  Administrative History: Valley Forge National Historical Park, Pennsylvania .  Denver: National Park Service Denver Service Center, 1984.

Related Collections

• Independence Hall Association Papers Independence National Historical Park Library and Archives Merchants Exchange Building, Third and Walnut Streets, Philadelphia.
• Records of the Valley Forge Park Commission Valley Forge National Historical Park Valley Forge, Pa.
• Washington Association of New Jersey Collection Morristown National Historical Park Library and Archives Morristown, N.J.

Related Places

• Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site
• First State National Historical Park
• Hopewell Furnace National Historical Site
• Independence Hall
• Independence Visitor Center
• Morristown National Historical Park
• New Jersey Pinelands Reserve
• Second Bank of the United States
• Thaddeus Kosciuszko National Memorial
• Valley Forge National Historical Park

Backgrounders

Connecting Headlines with History

• Delaware's long road to a National Park (WHYY, December 18, 2014)
• Old Swedes Church joins First State National Park (WHYY, May 11, 2015)
• National parks tout economic impact of $30 billion (WHYY, February 28, 2013)
• Shutdown cost national parks at least $414M (WHYY, March 4, 2014)
• Beyond the Uniform: Stories from the National Park Service (WHYY, June 3, 2016)
• Cradle of Independence (PhillyHistory.org)
• Benjamin Franklin Museum Opens This Weekend, Free of its Old Quirks (Hidden City Philadelphia)
• Striking a Chord for Liberty (Hidden City Philadelphia)
• National Park Service
• Hopewell Furnace National Historical Park
• Hopewell Village Historical Marker (ExplorePAHistory.org)

Connecting the Past with the Present, Building Community, Creating a Legacy

17 Sep A Photo Essay: National Parks

Showcasing some of the best scenery and landscapes, national parks are pretty special to explore, and 2016 marks the 100th year anniversary of the parks in the United States. National Parks are some of our favorite places to spend time, and this past year, we definitely made it to our fair share. We managed to visit over 15 national parks while road tripping around the US and Canada this summer. It is amazing how many different landscapes the two countries have to offer—there is really something for everyone, from the desert, to forest, to beaches, to mountains and everything in between.

While we typically didn’t have more than a day or two in each park, we did manage to cover a lot of ground in most every one we visited. Each park has something so different to offer, but our favorite adventure always includes checking out a hiking trail or two. We just wish we had more time to explore—we will definitely be heading back to many of the parks for another visit in the future.

Visiting so many parks in one year gave us the idea of a new goal—we want to visit all of the national parks in the United States! We haven’t set a deadline for this goal, but we are going to make visiting the parks a priority when we are near one. Some of the parks we are most looking forward to visiting in the future are Denali National Park, Yosemite National Park and Grand Teton National Park. Until then, here’s a look at the rest of the parks we managed to check out so far this year! Also, stay tuned for a more in-depth look at each park in future posts!

Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado is an amazing desert, and it’s a blast to board down, as well!

The park is surrounded by mountains, fields and a river, which makes for a huge contrast of scenery.

Zion National Park is located in Utah–we did the Angels Landing hike and this is the view from the top.

The hike up to Angels Landing is said to be one of the most dangerous hikes in the world, and it was intense with steep drop-offs, switchbacks and gorgeous views!

In Arches National Park is also located in Utah, and one of the hikes we went on was to the famous site, Delicate Arch.

Acadia National Park in Maine is one of our favorite parks in the United States–we loved watching this sunset from Cadillac Mountain!

Jordan Pond is another great spot in Acadia National Park–next time we will have to try the popovers in the nearby restaurant!

The coastal views are fantastic throughout Cape Breton National Park in Canada–we really enjoyed the windy hike we took along the Skyline Trail.

Cape Breton National Park is located in Nova Scotia–we drove there all the way from Minnesota, and let me tell you, it was a long drive!

Glacier National Park in Montana was one of the parks we visited twice this summer. It was another one of our favorite parks, but it was sad to see all the forest fire damage everywhere.

Our favorite campsite in Glacier National Park was Sprague Creek, which had gorgeous views over Lake McDonald.

Isle Royale National Park is an island located on Lake Superior. The only way to get there is by boat, and no vehicles or wheeled transportation is allowed on the island.

You can take a day trip to the island, or stay in one of the several hike in campgrounds. We took the day trip from Minnesota, but the island is actually located in Michigan waters!

The Great Smoky Mountains are located in both Tennessee and North Carolina. Clingmans Dome is an observation tower that offers wonderful views over the mountains.

Thousands Islands National Park is located in Canada, but it spans the international border of the United States and Canada.

Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada is our favorite national park in Canada, so far. Canoeing at Moraine Lake was one of our favorite adventures this summer–it was incredibly gorgeous!

The Vermillion Lakes consist of a series of lakes in Banff National Park–I loved the jagged mountains in the backdrop!

Lake Minnewanka in Banff was another gorgeous spot in the national park. We happened to catch this shot during a pause in the thunderstorm we were trying to outrun.

Glacier National Park in Canada offers great mountain views, but it’s best explored by hiking through the backcountry.

Unfortunately, our visit to Shenandoah National Park in Virginia was spent entirely trying to escape the fog. At times, we could barely see in front of our car, but fog did make the lush green forests pretty mystical.

Everglades National Park in Florida is an interesting place–from what I’ve seen of the Everglades in the past, I was not expecting to find lush green trees like this!

We took the Shark Valley Tram Tour out to the observation tower, which provided sprawling views over the heart of the Everglades.

Voyageurs National Park is located in our home state of Minnesota! It is another park that is located along the United States and Canadian borders.

A third of this park is made up of water, and there are 655 miles of shoreline throughout Voyageurs. You can camp at very secluded sites only reachable by boat, or try your hand on a houseboat, one of the more popular ways to see the park!

Mount Rainier National Park in Washington was a last minute addition to our itinerary, and I’m sure glad it was. Even though most of the mountains were covered in haze from the nearby forest fires, we did still manage to catch a glowing sunset!

Share with us! What are you favorite National Parks?

Related posts.

Essay on National Park

A national park is a preserve of natural, historically significant, or both protected by the government. These places help people be better stewards of the environment, explore the natural beauty and diverse ecosystems around them, and connect with their spiritual side. National parks are for everyone. They are remote, beautiful, and a place to get away from chaos. BYJU’S essay on national park is a great way to teach kids the significance of this natural resource.

National park brings out an inner child in everybody and help create memories. They provide us with places to learn from nature, explore our surroundings, and spend time with family or friends. National parks give us the chance to enjoy the beauty of nature without any external influence. There are many activities that people can do at the national parks, such as jeep safaris, boat safaris, elephant safaris, and more. Some of India’s most popular national parks are Nagarahole National Park, Jim Corbett National Park, Ranthambore National Park, Kaziranga National Park, Gir National Park and many more.

National Parks of India

India is a land of diversity and a bundle of natural resources. Incredible India is home to 106 national parks covering 1.33%, which is 43,716 km of the geographical area of the nation.

Importance of National Parks

National parks are an excellent place for kids to explore and learn about the world. Some National parks offer programmes and workshops designed to engage kids on their level. There are plenty of national park websites that provide information about animals and activities. All these activities are essential to developing skills for life outside of school.

National parks reflect the diverse regions of the world. They give us a chance to enjoy nature in its purest form, without any distractions. They also provide economic benefits by supporting multiple industries such as tourism and timber.

National parks are unique places where people can experience and explore nature. They provide a variety of outdoor activities and educational opportunities. National parks also offer wildlife that people can observe, including different species of birds, elephants , tigers, bears, rhinoceros, monitor lizards etc. A short essay on national park is an excellent example of understanding the importance of preserving nature.

Importance of Conserving National Parks

National parks play an essential role in balancing the ecosystem. They protect mother Earth from the harsh effects of weather and pollution and provide wildlife to live and grow. National parks are home to many natural resources. They are also crucial for preserving and protecting the resources crucial for the Earth’s future. BYJU’S essay on national park in India is eye-opening for us to understand the significance of preserving these precious natural resources.

National parks in incredible India are a significant source of conservation and tourism income. This income is necessary to maintain the parks and provides jobs for many people in the tribal regions. The economic value of these parks is also substantial because they protect the environment from deforestation .

To conclude, national parks serve as a source of clean air and water, protection against climate change, and help protect biodiversity. We must protect and conserve these natural resources and join hands against cutting down trees and supporting afforestation . For more essays, worksheets and other kids learning activities, visit BYJU’S website.

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Jim Corbett National Park, Uttarakhand, is the oldest national park in India.

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Heading into Lodore Canyon and Dinosaur National Monument on the Green River/Kurt Repanshek

Famed for being the last major tributary of the Colorado that hasn’t been dammed, the Yampa River that slices through Dinosaur National Monument in northeastern Utah and western Colorado is a river that quickly enamors those who float its pools and channels and buck its rapids, all the while surrounded by magnificent Western scenery. 

Faults and folds of geology are revealed in the canyon walls the river has cut down through the ages. In the lower stretches of the river, ruddy sandstone walls rise more than 1,000 feet above the river’s currents, dwarfing those bobbing along.

Dinosaur National Monument is just one of 423 units of the National Park System, which stretches not only from coast to coast and Canada to Mexico but into the Caribbean and the far Pacific beyond Hawaii. But spend time in Dinosaur, running the Yampa or Green rivers that flow through it, or marvel at the paleontological wonders that are protected there, and you can’t help but fall in love with the national monument.

As founder and editor-in-chief of the National Parks Traveler , I’m not supposed to have any favorites in the park system. But Dinosaur definitely pulls on me. As do Yellowstone, Acadia, Rocky Mountain, Glacier, and … well, you get it.

Kurt Repanshek in Shenandoah National Park during a hike on the A.T./Bob Mishak

As sprawling, mesmerizing, and intriguing as the U.S. National Park System is, it’s no surprise that it harbors a rich trove of stories and experiences. Stories about the scenery, the environment, the wildlife, the culture, and the history of the United States. Experiences such as hiking the Appalachian National Scenic Trail from end to end, paddling into the backcountry of  Yellowstone Lake , standing in awe in the darkness of night while watching the flaming eruption of Halemaʻumaʻu Crater on the top of the Kīlauea at Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park .

These stories and experiences are the fodder for the Traveler’s small team of journalists and photographers. We stay busy reporting – in  words  and  weekly podcasts  — not only on the wonders of the park system, but also on the challenges the parks, and the National Park Service, face year in and year out. Our coverage ranges from wildfires in the parks to Congressional hearings involving the Park Service. In short, we bring readers and listeners a multimedia blend of news, feature content, podcasts, debate, and discussion.

It never gets old or boring. Not with stories revolving around geologic wonders to be found in Yellowstone , Grand Canyon , and Mount Rainier national parks. Or the wildlife success stories involving fishers, a small weasel-like mammal, returning to Olympic National Park , or the wolverines spotted in Mount Rainier National Park after having been extirpated in the early 1900s. The latter are stories of renewal, recolonization, and success in supporting the country’s biodiversity.

With the  250 th  birthday of the United States coming up in 2026, places like Valley Forge in Pennsylvania, Saratoga National Historical Park in upstate New York, and Ninety-Six National Historic Site in South Carolina interpret rich stories of the country’s fight for freedom.

On the river – whether it’s the  Yampa through Dinosaur , the New River in its namesake park, or the  Colorado River through Grand Canyon , just to mention three wonderful choices in the park system – you gain the ability to immerse yourself in nature on a leisurely float. River time, as they say, does not subtract from your lifetime. But it does give you time to gain a deeper appreciation for the park system.

Support National Parks Traveler

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A copy of National Parks Traveler's financial statements may be obtained by sending a stamped, self-addressed envelope to: National Parks Traveler, P.O. Box 980452, Park City, Utah 84098. National Parks Traveler was formed in the state of Utah for the purpose of informing and educating about national parks and protected areas.

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The Essential RVing Guide

The National Parks RVing Guide , aka the Essential RVing Guide To The National Parks , is the definitive guide for RVers seeking information on campgrounds in the National Park System where they can park their rigs. It's available for free for both iPhones and Android models.

This app is packed with RVing specific details on more than 250 campgrounds in more than 70 parks. You'll also find stories about RVing in the parks, some tips if you've just recently turned into an RVer, and some planning suggestions. A bonus that wasn't in the previous eBook or PDF versions of this guide are feeds of Traveler content: you'll find our latest stories as well as our most recent podcasts just a click away. So whether you have an iPhone or an Android , download this app and start exploring the campgrounds in the National Park System where you can park your rig.

What is the most visited national park in the US? Answers to your biggest park questions

M ost people have heard of Yosemite’s Half Dome or Yellowstone's Old Faithful , but how about the largest national park? Or which gets the most visitors each year? 

USA TODAY rounded up answers to the most popular park questions to help travelers better understand these national treasures and share some fun trivia with family and friends on their next park visit.

Here are 10 things to know about America’s national parks .

Start the day smarter. Get all the news you need in your inbox each morning.

What is the most visited national park in the US? 

Great Smoky Mountains is the most visited national park in America, by far. Last year, it drew nearly three times the visitors as the second-most visited park, Grand Canyon , according to National Park Service data .

These were the 15 most visited national parks in 2023:

• Great Smoky Mountains in North Carolina and Tennessee - 13,297,647
• Grand Canyon in Arizona - 4,733,705
• Zion in Utah - 4,623,238
• Yellowstone in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming - 4,501,382
• Rocky Mountain in Colorado - 4,115,837
• Yosemite in California - 3,897,070
• Acadia in Maine - 3,879,890
• Grand Teton in Wyoming - 3,417,106
• Joshua Tree in California  - 3,270,404
• Olympic National Park in Washington - 2,947,503
• Glacier National Park in Montana - 2,933,616
• Cuyahoga Valley in Ohio - 2,860,059
• Indiana Dunes in Indiana - 2,765,892
• Hot Springs in Arkansas - 2,502,967
• Bryce Canyon in Utah - 2,461,269

The least visited national park is Gates of the Arctic in Alaska, which drew 11,045 visitors last year even though there are no roads to get there.“Even for Alaska, Gates of the Arctic is sort of above all the rest in terms of difficulty of reaching it, solitude, remoteness,” Peter Christian, chief spokesperson for Public Affairs for the National Park Service’s Alaska region, previously told USA TODAY.  

'Finding hidden gems': America's least visited national parks

What are the big 3 national parks?

When people think of national parks, three loom large in many minds: Grand Canyon, Yellowstone and Yosemite. 

However, they’re neither the three most visited national parks nor the largest in size. 

What is the largest US national park?

Wrangell-St. Elias is the biggest of all. It’s more than three times the size of Grand Canyon, Yellowstone and Yosemite national parks combined. 

The three biggest national parks are all in Alaska:

• Wrangell-St. Elias National Park & Preserve - 13.2 million acres
• Gates of the Arctic National Park & Preserve - nearly 8.5 million acres
• Denali National Park & Preserve - more than 4.7 million acres

The smallest national park is Gateway Arch in Missouri, at roughly 91 acres.

What is the newest national park?

New River Gorge , in West Virginia, became America’s newest national park in December 2020.

It was previously designated a national river. 

Story continues below.

How many national parks are in the US?

There are 63 national parks across the country, including two in U.S. territories.

USA TODAY has been spotlighting each one in a yearlong series that shares insights and tips from the park rangers who know them best.

Has anyone been to all 63 national parks?

Yes. Multiple people have accomplished this bucket list feat, including Stefanie Payne, who visited all 63 parks within one year and wrote about them in " 100 Things to See in the National Parks ."

“The Alaska parks are the ones that are deepest in my heart because they are in such a remote and rugged landscape,” she previously told USA TODAY . “It's really just mind-bending to be in some of those areas, especially when the mountains are so big and the glaciers and the terrain is really challenging and you start to see what you're made of.”

What state has the best national parks?

Many national parks fans point to Utah’s Mighty Five : Arches, Bryce Canyon, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef and Zion, but best is subjective. 

“I'm sure every park is like, ‘Everywhere is the best.’ It's all so good, right?” Petrified Forest National Park park ranger Jessica Barnett told USA TODAY.

Which state has the most number of national parks?

California has the most national parks, with nine: Channel Islands, Death Valley, Joshua Tree, Kings Canyon, Lassen Volcanic, Pinnacles, Redwood, Sequoia, and Yosemite.

Death Valley actually straddles California and Nevada. A number of America’s national parks span multiple states.

What state has no national park? 

There are no national parks in Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont or Wisconsin.

However, all 50 states are home to other National Park Service units , like national battlefields and seashores, which are sometimes called parks.

The National Park System currently has 429 units. The most recent addition is Amanche National Historic Site in Colorado. Travelers can find sites by state on the National Park Service’s website .

What is a national park a park for? 

When Yellowstone became America’s first national park in 1872, Congress designated it “a public park or pleasuring ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people,” but national parks have come to offer and protect much more.

“The National Park Service preserves unimpaired the natural and cultural resources and values of the National Park System for the enjoyment, education, and inspiration of this and future generations,” according the mission shared on its website. 

To help protect these spaces, visitors are asked to leave no trace .

Contributing: Bailey Schulz, USA TODAY

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: What is the most visited national park in the US? Answers to your biggest park questions

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College Minor: Everything You Need to Know

14 fascinating teacher interview questions for principals, tips for success if you have a master’s degree and can’t find a job, 14 ways young teachers can get that professional look, which teacher supplies are worth the splurge, 8 business books every teacher should read, conditional admission: everything you need to know, college majors: everything you need to know, 7 things principals can do to make a teacher observation valuable, 3 easy teacher outfits to tackle parent-teacher conferences, simple & easy national parks essay topics.

Simple & Easy National Parks Essay Titles

• The Major Challenges Affecting National Parks
• National Parks: The Values of Mesa Verde National Park
• Preferences for the Site and Environmental Functions When Selecting Forthcoming National Parks
• State and National Parks’ Degradation
• An Introduction to Gabon National Parks
• Social Differences: National Parks and Sustainable Tourism
• Poverty Risks and National Parks: Policy Issues in Conservation and Resettlement
• The Importance of National Parks and Cities to Instilling Nationalism in America
• The Effects of Drone Use on National Parks
• Economic Impact of National Parks in the United States
• A Discussion on Building Close Social Trails in National Parks
• The Destruction of the National Parks System
• Debating National Parks’ Policy of Restricted Access
• Protecting and Preserving America’s National Parks
• The Yellowstone National Park’s Volcanic Activity
• Why Must Protect National Parks from Development

Most Interesting National Parks Topics to Write About

• Landscape Conservation and Economic Interdependence in National Parks
• National Parks Across the Planet
• India’s Largest National Parks Tourism
• An Analysis of the Yosemite National Park’s History
• How Congress Allocates the Funds to Help Create More National Parks
• Market Failures and the Rationale for National Parks
• The Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks
• Impact of Government on America’s National Parks
• Comparison of the Size of National Parks in the US and Great Britain
• Recreational Value and Optimal Pricing of National Parks
• An Analysis of the Effects of Global Warming on National Parks
• President Roosevelt’s National Parks and Preservation
• Private Sector Business Opportunities in National Parks
• National Parks for African Americans as A Tourism Destination
• American National Identity and National Parks History
• Ecotourism and Its Impact on Gurung National Parks of Sarawak
• Famous National Parks in Africa
• An Analysis of Tourism in American National Parks
• The History of the Creation of National Parks
• National Parks Are Victims of Their Success as Locations for Leisure Pursuits

19 Ways to Help Students Who Do ...

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