It’s always interesting to see how America’s National Park System is portrayed internationally. One way to get a handle on that is to read park-themed articles published on an occasional basis in The Economist. The authoritative English language weekly news and international affairs publication, certainly one of the most respected of the world’s widely circulated periodicals, has a circulation of about 1.3 million. Published by the Economist Group and edited in the UK, The Economist is distributed in over 200 countries around the world. Nearly half of its readership is outside North America.
So, what has The Economist been saying about America’s national parks? Here’s the gist.
(Oh, by the way; when we say that The Economist says this, or The Economist says that, we can’t know exactly who is doing the saying. The publication – which calls itself a “newspaper,” even though it is glossy paper-printed and looks exactly like a newsweekly magazine -- doesn’t believe in bylines.)
The article of interest here is dated July 12, 2008, and bears the “Out of the Wilderness” title. Its main observations, conclusions, and assertions are these:
• Attendance for America’s national parks peaked more than 20 years ago (in 1987).
• Declining attendance at national parks is a well-established, long-term trend, not just a transient event attributable to factors such as abrupt increases in fuel costs.
• The annual attendance declines for California’s Yosemite National Park (9 of the past 13 years) should be considered ominous, given that California is America’s most dependable bellwether state and Yosemite is California’s most attractive park.
• Having become more satisfied with the recreational options available in/near cities, Americans are now less interested in outdoor recreation opportunities in rural, back country, and wilderness locales.
• Americans believe that their national parks are much less entertaining, less user-friendly, and less kid-safe than they should be.
• Hispanics, the fastest growing component of the American population, show little interest in visiting or paying for national parks; since Hispanics will soon account for 20-25 percent of country’s population, this should be a matter of great concern.
• International tourists are taking up much of the slack created by diminished park-visiting interest on the part of Americans. By implication, the National Park Service needs to work much harder attracting and pleasing them.
• The National Park Service does not understand the implications of declining attendance and has failed to effectively address the issue.
• Environmentalists pose the greatest obstacle to restoring national park attendance to historically higher norms; by blocking needed convenience- and entertainment- related developments in the parks, environmentalists have taken away the main tool for increasing park attractiveness.
• As national park visitation continues to decline, Americans will become less willing to see their tax money spent to improve the national parks and expand the National Park System.
Well, there you have it. Not very pretty, is it?
You’ll be reading more about the referenced trends and issues in Traveler. Remember, I’m not vetting this article's observations and conclusions at this time, just drawing them to your attention as an indication of how the international press is reporting on America's national parks, “the best idea America ever had.” Perhaps you’d like to comment.
Incidentally, if you should happen to read the entire article in The Economist, you will find an absolutely bizarre statement that reads like this: "Were it not for British and German tourists enjoying the weak dollar, the parks would be desolate." Folks, that has got to be one of the most asinine statements about our national parks that I have seen in recent years, and I have seen some beauts. What were they thinking?!
Comments
Allow me to lighten the mood with a "dumb foreigner" story....
My wife and I passed through Yellowstone while driving from Washington back to Michigan this month. It was a Saturday in August and I knew it would be hell on the loop roads, but my wife had never seen Yellowstone, so I wanted to show her a couple sites, perhaps to whet the appetite for a return when time for off-road exploration was available. (And by the way, Bob, my unscientific survey at Artists Point is that 60% to 70% of the visitors were German or French-speaking! Of the remaining 30-40, probably half were east Asian language speakers. I don't think I heard more than a person or two speaking Spanish.)
Anyway, we go to Norris Basin. There were some obnoxious drunken rednecks in the parking lot, so we were musing about "stupid, ugly Americans" as we walked the boardwalk through the basin. Then a German-speaking lady in front of us bent down and scooped up some of the water in her hand and tasted it!!! In the tirade of German that followed, I picked up the word "sulfur." Given that the whole place reeks like rotten eggs, you would think......well, maybe you wouldn't think. Most people don't.
I think the article raises some interesting issues and makes some interesting points but fails to provide any hard facts on the main issue, that is the reasons for people’s reluctance to visit US national parks.
Others have pointed out – and I agree – that we should distinguish between the National Park System (NPS) and the lands covered by the NPS. The lands might just as well be conserved while the NP System might at the same time fall into oblivion as some have pointed out.
However, the Economist article has a very valid point (based on environmental psychology): People tend to attach more value to those things / places / habits they are associated with and afraid of losing. They do not attach as much value to something that they are not associated with, irrespective of its “objective” value. So, in the long run, the lack of visitors could have a very negative effect not simply budget-wise but mainly attitude-wise.
Of course, this is not an iron-clad law and it could be that other forces -political / psychological, call them what you want – may be arising these days, that will make this physical connection with the environment less important. That is, people could be becoming so deeply interested about the natural environment and ecology that their personal lack of connection with nature is no longer important.
If natural parks’ lands do not face development pressures or other “dangers” then their future may not be at peril.
A couple more comments, if you'll allow me:
1. It’s interesting to me how some of the most ardent proponents of preservation declare that their main reason for their belief is their will to be left alone / far from the madding crowds of occasional visitors / tourists. I can certainly understand this at a personal level but I find it extremely insufficient, if not damaging, as a political argument.
2. Nevertheless, the Economist article fails to make any mention (actually it does indirectly and in a negative way, without using the term) of the concept of carrying capacity, which, like it or not, must be at the heart of any management plan.
3. One last point, to turn everything upside down: I have noticed that the NPS manages thousands of places/ sites, many of which are not “natural parks”. The “data” provided by the Economist do not make a clear distinction between these different types of sites. Could it be that people are not actually turning away from natural areas? (Data, please! Data!)
Either way, I personally intend / hope to spend more of my euros in your national parks in the years to come. :)
Thank God national parks often have a reputation for being wilderness-challenged tourist traps full of the screaming, littering masses. That's why Colorado's Front Range residents often seem to avoid Rocky Mountain National Park, poo-hooing it as inferior to the Front Range's other wilderness areas and instead flock to the nearby solitude-challenged Indian Peaks Wilderness or other areas of Denver's nearby high country. What this means is that our national forests in the Front Range and their mountains are teeming with people, and the true backcountry of "Rocky" is often empty and waiting to be explored in solitude by people like me.
Park visitors often cling to the beaten path. Stray from there and you often find a plethora of wild places, to wit: From my window in downtown DNC-crazed Denver, I can see Rocky Mountain NP's Longs Peak, beneath which exists the great green mass of appropriately-named Wild Basin, where the park's great nature-challenged masses are generally absent. I can name you a dozen other places in Rocky that are remote, relatively untrodden and totally off the tourist's radar.
Arches National Park has a giant blank spot on the map in the southeast quadrant of the park near the Colorado River -- no trails, no visitor centers and few people. Walk a mile off the main highway away from Devil's Garden and the same is true.
When I think of remote, wild land in the lower 48, the area around Toroweap in busy Grand Canyon comes to mind. Or Canyonlands' Maze District. Or anywhere off the highway at Capitol Reef. The North Rim of Black Canyon of the Gunnison. Anywhere a mile from the visitor center at Great Sand Dunes. Along Lake Fontana in Great Smoky Mountains. The surface of Carlsbad Caverns NP. Darn near all of Congaree and Great Basin. You get the picture.
Name a national park and you can find remote, empty, wild wilderness worth protecting. Guaranteed.
"In the morning, you'll still be ugly"
The story goes, Winston Churchill had spent the evening at one of those necessary 'social functions', and had indulged one or several more alcoholic beverages than protocol required.
Evidently, his demeanor became sufficiently undignified that it attracted the notice of a certain Important Madame. (Or perhaps it was just his exceptionally good spirits & joviality that the perhaps humorless I.M. found grating.) Whatever the provocation, she was impelled to confront Sir Churchill, and imperiously & dramatically proclaim, "Winston, you're drunk!".
All eyes turned toward the welcome spot of interest & intrigue, in an evening otherwise lacking anything worth being up late for. The berated Churchill lifted his refreshment of choice to lips and took a slow, luxurious draught, and then lowering the glass, whipped his mouth with his shirt-sleeve.
"Madame", he then enunciated precisely, "I may be drunk, but you are ugly, and though I'll be sober in the morning, you'll still be ugly."
[hr]
Likewise with our Parks. We can compile an inventory of objections to ... the antics of other people, or to conditions & activities far beyond the Park borders, or far up in the sky ... which offend the dignity of some. But in fact, these irritants are matters of personal perception and without meaningful impact upon the fundamental resource ... the wilderness, the ecology or the biome. They don't harm anything ... except maybe the sensibilities of certain humans.
As for those who feel they ought not to have their 'experience' disturbed by a few more additional visitors than they prefer, or to listen to others' revelry that is discordant to their sombre composure ... well, Winston Churchill pegged it.
SaltSage236;
You are really so right! I felt silly bringing it up myself, since it so obvious an experience for those who head into "the backcountry".
I am really familiar only with Olympic National Park, but I am really familiar with it!
Doesn't everyone know that each hour one puts between himself and the trailhead dramatically alters the nature of the people he encounters? That each day one moves off the trail into the backcountry transforms the denizens of such realms as though they are a different species!?
Well, it's true. Olympic officials proudly announce that 2 to 3 million visitors come to the Park each year. You certainly couldn't proven it by me. Never seen 'em, don't have anything to do with them - and I live next to the Park year round (indeed, the most heavily visited part). They don't bother me, and I don't bother them. There could be a hundred million of them come through, and it would be just a shrug, for those of us who haunt the backcountry.
Thirty years ago (at a peak of backcountry enjoyment) there were trod footpaths visible along the key off-trail routes in remote regions of Olympic. A general description and a good topo, and any novice could easily find & follow those routes. Today, the paths are often grown-in and invisible. Without knowing just where they are, it is easy to wander off and greatly complicate the prospect of moving efficiently through trailless areas. In fact, backcountry usage is way down, and has been for many years.
In a few days, I will take a week hike into the Bailey Range of Olympic National Park. This is the biggest, most popular, most spectacular of the standard off-trail traverses. Statistically, I will see less than 10 people total, in 3 or 4 groups - at the very height of tourist season. I may spend 2 or 3 days of that week in total solitude, while moving 10 miles or more each day through ... a sample of planet Earth from 100,000 BC.
10,000,000 people live within an easy drive of Olympic, and there will be roughly 50-100,000 visitors to the Park, while I am rejuvenating my endorphine-balance in seeming the wildest realms in creation.
And all those seething thousands who want & need something more civilized? I am happy to accommodate them.
this is a great post, and a very interesting discussion.
@ saltsage236:
"Sure, "park" is an entirely anthropocentric moniker for a tract of land protected for its natural values moreso than its direct recreational benefit to humans. But here's the rub: Call our parks what you want, but if they exist primarily for the facilitation of fun, our society will lose more than it could ever gain from the Disneyfication of national parks. We benefit in countless ways by preserving our most spectacular and special lands in national parks. Each has educational value; scientific value; the value of national parks, like wilderness areas, being sources of both clean water and, ideally, clean air; and, yes, even recreational value."
i don't disagree! all i'm saying is that if people aren't connected with this resource, or at least educated to see their value and tangible efforts aren't made to enhance people's understanding of the parks (by someone, i'm not calling in the gov here) then we're going to lose the baseline funding needed to simpling maintain (let alone improve) our beautiful parks. getting people into the parks is essential to their protection, but is (agreed) a double edge sword as well.
Frank;
I believe the real idea behind making Parks, that made making Parks (etc) a Great Idea, was the notion to preserve the physical resource itself. Why is the physical preservation of an area a Great Idea? Because it is a concept that many people can relate & resonate to ... and can agree upon.
In this view, anything that physically alters the preserved resource is to be avoided, while conditions that do not change the resource, but may irritate some visitors, are of lesser or no importance.
Have there indeed been those figures (as you quote) who championed the subjective experience of a person who is not being 'bothered' by other persons? Yes, of course. But these notions are not what made the Parks-idea a Great Idea.
I do not confuse or confabulate road-building etc (a physical change) with non-physical, transient conditions such the presence of a crowd, or shouting, dashing, excited children. And neither should anyone else. Physical alterations of the preserved area are one thing, and subjective but non-physical conditions are another.
I wish nobody had to endure the urban onslaught that you describe in your life, Frank (I shudder) ... though I also know there are those who find it stimulating & satisfying. My empathy is with your plight ... but I cannot concur that because the urban living situation is stressful for some of us, the Parks ought to therefore be defined as "quiet space". Not as a priority.
Parks are properly - in my view - "natural space". If people whooping it up don't alter the "nature" that inhabits the space, then my irritation at their revelry is really just a 'personal problem'.
Almost unavoidably, attempting to define Parks in terms of "silence and solitude", etc, is to exclude people from the public resource, for no other reason than to create ... an absence of people. Well, strictly speaking, who is to enjoy this solitude: how are we to say, "All you people, stay out, so this one person can have solitude"? Everyone: silence please.
No. That is not the route to the solution desired by those who feel stressed and want an 'escape'.
But the solitude they seek does exist. Both SaltSage236 and myself have described it forthrightly. Get off the roads. Get away from the campgrounds. Walk. Away from the trailhead: then, away from the trail.
There is silence that ROARS right through you ... with the seething horde pulsating through their migration-routes & water-holes elsewhere. There is solitude that will CRUSH you, while the crowd-addicts get their fix at the usual opium dens ... elsewhere.
Please, re-read SaltSage236' comment that begins, "Thank God national parks often have...", and my reply to him/her, which begins, "SaltSage236; You are really so right! I felt silly...". You will see in these two comments, that we both consider the values you seek to be a central part of our own value-system. The only difference is, we go out and get them ... right through & past the madding crowd.
What you want, Frank, is out there ... but you must go where it is, not where it isn't.