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?!
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Comments
To me, this isn't about whether Frank can get to his solitude now, but whether his children or grandchildren will have that option. It's a fact that a majority (vast majority, in many cases) of the land in each park is wild, kidless, and free of anthropocentric sound. Take Ted's beloved Olympic. There are about 5 or 6 places, each the size of a soccer field or two, that everyone gathers. And Olympic is gigantic. It takes 7 or 8 hours to drive around the thing at 50 mph. Even tight little parks like Acadia provide shelter from the masses with a quick trip off-trail. Finding solitude now isn't the issue. The problem is the fact that wilderness is not entertaining, kid-safe, or user-friendly. Thus, the screaming masses that speak with their wallets in the cafeterias detest wilderness. The more wilderness that is converted to tourist-friendly land, the better off the parks will be - financially, if not morally. If I was in need of a thousand-dollar medicine to save my life and had not a penny to my name, you might find me holding up a convenience store. Likewise, I believe it's prudent to be wary of the behavior of the NPS should its financial woes worsen.
Ted, I went hiking up the Queets valley a couple weeks ago. Neither words nor pictures can do justice to that place. But I'm also picturing the slope at the trailhead being a waterslide that shoots out the river. They'll be lifeguards there of course. ( I almost drowned fording it on the way out.) The gravel bar between the Sam's and Queets will have a little Tiki Bar. I can see the dollar signs now. We'll need to pave the road in, of course. The winter floods might be a problem. Perhaps a dam up near Service Falls. That canyon could hold a lot of water...
That's the nightmare I have every time I hear the parks aren't entertaining enough.
Kirby et al,
An important part of my reaction to concerns expressed here on the National Parks Traveler that we are at risk of 'Shock & Awe' development in the Parks, stems from my experience with Olympic Nat'l Park. I have only superficial & spotty exposure to other Parks.
For those who know the Olympic situation, worries about amusement park-style commercial ventures in Parks across the nation are something of a head-scratcher. "Really?"
There is no sign of the slightest tolerance for any rinky-dink Tiki bars on the Queets River, nor anything of the sort anywhere else. Exactly the opposite: the Park is unrelentingly hostile to all in-holders, with especially intense animus for businesses of any sort. The unit management have been pressuring all concessionaires throughout my lifetime (and before), and when they finally 'break' them, they close & raze the facilities.
For those who do not know, the Olympic Park hosts one of the highest-profile hydroelectric dam and reservoir-lake removal projects in the United States (or world). The Elwah River (draining the north-central Olympic Peninsula & Park) contains two dams, one within the Park. Both totally block salmon-migration (A really stupid (I daresay, "criminal") oversight ... or, was it purposeful - to take the salmon away from the Elwah Tribe?).
Both Elwah dams are slated for removal, quite soon. This will be a historic project that will receive high media coverage. Congressional funding has been approved.
There is zero prospect of a dam on the Queets. Nor anywhere else in the Park (or even outside it). Dams are totally yesteryear - certainly in this part of the nation.
New roads? Better paving? No sign of it. No, the Park closes roads, dawdles for long periods to fix serious damage, then leaves the roadway in a condition that clearly communicates, "Please realize, we maintain this road at all, only under protest. We hate it, and it will be gone at the first excuse we can find".
That is the reality in Olympic Nat'l Park. In 50 years, the only new facilities I know about in the northern & western parts of the Park, have been a few new toll-shacks in the roads. I am not quite saturation-familiar with the eastern & southern Park - but I have never heard of anything supporting new business anywhere in Olympic. Any attempt to say, develop a little in-holder parcel on the Queets River into a cute tourist-trap would meet a raging, fire-breathing dragon in the Park bureaucracy. No fooling.
The Park itself develop new tourist venues? That's a ha-ha.
I'm surprised to read so many posts lauding the not-so-noble pursuit of hiking off trail! From the standpoint of recreation impact, a gaggle of tourists who stay on the trail will generally have fewer impacts on the natural world than an off-trail rambler in search of mystic connections with the landscape. The pretentious attitude of too many park enthusiasts is that their activities are right and everyone else's are wrong. Placing a birding guide in your daypack does not make you a field biologist, and donning a pair of leather hiking boots does not make you John Muir. Encouraging a broader spectrum of recreation options in national parks won't destroy them, and might significantly improve support for them, so long as the activities are well managed. Of course, some folks will always feel that they are exempt from bothersome restrictions like avoiding off-trail travel ... after all they're pursuing something noble, while the great unwashed are merely getting in the way.
Frank, I'm sure you had a great time knocking around in those canyons, and that they're no worse off for it. Same goes for the idylls I've enjoyed in a host of remote locations while hiking, running, climbing and biking. The occasion for the original essay is the Economist speculating that American parks are in trouble. Managing them in a way that invites new users in and gets them involved with the parks is a necessity ... otherwise the parks become an expensive (and expendable) preserve for a tiny, aging and annoyingly intolerant sliver of society. If preservation were the only mission of the NPS then their mission would be simple: keep everybody out. The reality is that we're all "entertainment seekers" out there. All park visitors have impacts and all of them need to be managed. Besides. you and I both know that anyone who is willing to hike, bike or paddle more than a few miles from the parking lot is usually going to find a whole lot of solitude. If I have to go a few miles farther because the parks are filling up with enthusiastic supporters I'll consider it a blessing.