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Saving The National Parks From Climate Change, And The Backlog, Too

Might the National Park Service have greater success addressing climate change, and might the economy get a great boost from infrastructure jobs, if Congress, the railroads, and the Park Service saw the benefits of returning passenger service to the parks? Would the fallout be fewer motorists speeding from viewpoint to viewpoint? Might wildlife have a better chance of not becoming road kill? Would the need for adding more parking spots in the parks vanish? Historian Alfred Runte asks us to seriously think about the possibilities.

Op-Ed | Some People Have Always Hated National Monuments—Until They Love Them

Last week, President Trump launched an unprecedented assault on America’s public lands when he ordered Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to evaluate whether dozens of national monuments should be rescinded or reduced in size. It wasn't the first such attack, and more times than not in the past the same voices that once warned of economies destroyed by lands protection come to see that there’s more value in protecting a place than stripping it of minerals and trees.

UPDATED 2: Interior Department Releases List Of 27 National Monuments To Be Studied

Nearly 30 national monuments, from Bears Ears National Monument in Utah and Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument in Maine to Papahanaumokuakea National Monument in the Pacific and Northeast Canyons and Seamounts in the Atlantic Ocean, are going to be studied by the Interior Department to determine whether adequate public comment was taken into consideration before they were designated by Presidents Obama, Bush, and Clinton.

Tracking Sooty Terns On Their Comings And Goings From Dry Tortugas National Park

When I think back to my week camping within Dry Tortugas National Park, I remember the sounds beyond all else. Throughout the day and into the deepest hours of the night, the cacophony of seabird calls reverberated across the small islands and brick walls of Fort Jefferson. The Sooty terns, Brown noddies, and Magnificent frigatebirds constantly swirled above their breeding grounds, creating a dynamic, ever-changing landscape.