This year will likely be one of the most crucial in the history of our national parks. We are at a tipping point for our parks, and it could go either way. President Bush’s nominee for interior secretary, Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne, who appears before the U.S. Senate today, can be the deciding factor.
The future of America’s national parks is an issue buried under a welter of countless other pressing national concerns. But all of us who care about and enjoy the parks must pay close attention. Aggravating the pain of chronic funding shortfalls, a proposal to change the fundamental governance of our national parks would affect the health of the parks, and the stewardship of these places today and in the future.
Like many Americans, I grew up with a love for the national parks. Every summer, our family piled into the Chevy and headed for a national park tocamp, hike, fish and reacquaint ourselves with America’s stunning natural treasures. And I learned that these places were special, to be treated with respect and, shall I say it? reverence. “Sorry, Bill,” said Dad, “but no, you can’t bring home that rock; it belongs here. Parks are special.” Later, I learned how utterly unique these places are in the world. Foreign visitors frequently comment, “We don’t have anything like these natural wonders.” Such comments challenge any sense of complacency in our caring for these great American legacies.
A recent Harris Poll shows that the vast majority of the public (85 percent) supports national parks over many other federal government services and programs, including defense (71 percent), Social Security (76 percent), Medicare (76 percent), and federal aid to public schools (69 percent). Why? Because the parks are indeed special. Because Americans regard the parks — Antietam, Assateague, Yellowstone and Yosemite — with reverence.
But the proposed rewrite of the parks’ basic management principles could easily erode these places. The rewrite includes numerous damaging proposals, most notably the removal of language in the existing Management Policies that directs superintendents to stress conservation, above all, in their park decisions. This basic, long-standing tenet, now threatened, comes from the fundamental law that created the National Park System in the first place, which requires park managers to “conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wildlife therein by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.”
Enjoyment and keeping the parks unimpaired for the future are compatible. The rub is in the kinds of enjoyment, and how particular uses do increasing harm to the parks, affecting us, our children and their children. As drafted, the proposed rewrite could potentially increase pollution in Shenandoah National Park. High-impact uses, such asjet skis and off-road vehicles, could proliferate in Assateague and other national parks nationwide. Some uses, certainly acceptable in many places, are damaging to the special natural and historic heritage that our national parks were created to protect.
This debate about the future of our parks has the attention of members on both sides of the aisle in Congress, which has held three important hearings about the proposed rewrite thus far.
Additionally, Sens. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Rick Santorum, R-Pa., Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., Ken Salazar, D-Colo., and others sent letters recently to the Department of the Interior and National Park Service Director Fran Mainella about the proposed rewrite.
A few months ago, six Republican senators — Alexander, John Warner, R-Va., Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, Susan Collins, R-Maine, Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I., and Mel Martinez, R-Fla. — sent a letter to former Department of the Interior Secretary Gale Norton about the proposed rewrite.
“We are concerned that some changes with the potential for weakening the Park Service’s role in protecting air quality and increasing the potential for inappropriate motorized use in the national parks appear to be retained [from an earlier draft],” they wrote. “The Department’s first principle in rewriting Park Service policies should be to do no harm.”
The continued guidance and involvement of Congress in this process is imperative to ensuring that our national heritage is preserved for generations of Americans. As a historian, I can point to decades of examples when Congress tipped the scales for the national parks.
But the individual with perhaps the greatest opportunity to champion our national parks is Kempthorne, who has advocated for greater funding for Idaho’s park system. If confirmed, Kempthorne has the opportunity to also advocate for the preservation of our National Park System by working to provide adequate funding and by agreeing to take a closer look at this questionable proposal to rewrite the parks’ management policies.
We need that leadership today to ensure that our national parks are protected, and all of us, as the owners of our world-class park system, play a role every step of the way.
As first lady Laura Bush said recently, “Visiting our national parks really is a life-changing experience.” I learned this 40 years ago, and I hope other Americans have the same opportunity 40 years from now.
William L. Withuhn, a resident of Lanham, Md., and a professional historian, serves on the national advisory council of the National Parks Conservation Association.
