Should we close National Parks to protect them from human contact?

Nobody destroys forest in National Parks. That is the whole point of National Parks – to protect the environment.

If you close National Parks then all it becomes is a forest or a wilderness. By developing the National Parks, awareness to the importance of maintaining the natural beauty of such parks are instilled in people.

More of a concern should be the industrial plants whose emissions poison the parks. Last year the EPA changed their reporting requirements so that all plants no longer had to report “spikes” in toxic emissions by changing 24 and 72 hourly reporting requirements to monthly reports that absorbed the spikes in the reduced numbers and were therefor not in violation of emissions laws.
Yes, worry about humans, but not the ones respecting and enjoying nature by hiking and taking pictures.

If you think the US national parks are overcorwded you should visit the ones in the UK.

If you watch Ken Burns’ documentary, National Parks, America’s Best Idea, you will learn more than you could imagine about national parks & their purpose & how civilization has effected them. Check it out.

http://www.shoppbs.org/family/index.jsp?categoryId=3710203&cid=&002=2272122&004=1547326593&005=13610552277&006=5345773173&007=search&008=

@rpmpseudonym so what is your conclusion?

no, we should all be able to enjoy the beauty of the parks firsthand.

Well, I do remember something about the heavy foot traffic in yellowstone has caused some major problems, the park administrators created the boardwalks & limited how many people show up each day. I wouldn’t say close down the parks in order to save them, because people paying to go to the park, help pays for upkeep. So we should keep them open, just be careful with capacity & what the visitors bring in with them.

When Teddy Roosevelt was an asthmatic boy, his family sent him out into the country and he perked right up. This maybe saved his life. Later, when his beloved wife died tragically young, he escaped into the wilderness again to put his head back together and mend his broken heart.

When Teddy became President, one of his more controversial actions was to create the National Parks as a way to conserve the wilderness. At the time, the big business interests were against it. (“What, set aside a bunch of trees and not allow us to chop them down for profit? That’s unAmerican!”) Some of the more radical religious people of the time were against it, too. (“God gave us this Earth to use, and you won’t let us use it?”)

In some ways, it’s a big sign of how far the Republican party has shifted since ol’ TR was in office. TR, a Republican, thought conservation was one of the most important things he could do, and he fought what appears to be a coalition of the Religious Right and Big Business to do it. However, I can’t help but think that as he was putting this together, Teddy was thinking of all the brokenhearted lovers and asthmatic children who needed and deserved some part of the wildnerness to be set aside for them to get healed and get right. They are Americans, too.

Keeping that in mind, I don’t think the parks should be at all closed to responsible enjoyment. Teddy would come back and whisper some strong words and hit me with that big stick of his if I said anything different. :)

I ask because, this is very disturbing to me. _Schwarzenegger proposes closing 80 percent of California state parks

By Paul Rogers

05/29/2009

Nearly every state park in the Bay Area — from the towering redwoods at Big Basin to Angel Island, Mount Tamalpais to Mount Diablo and every state beach from Año Nuevo in San Mateo County to Big Sur — would close as part of budget cuts proposed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

In all, 220 of California’s 279 state parks, about 80 percent, would be padlocked starting as soon as Labor Day, under details of a historic closing plan released Thursday night by the state parks department. _ There has been more talk recently, about this happening. Apparently, it is not cost effective to keep them open.

The purpose of National Parks is not to be pristine areas of nature with no human contact. It is to instill a love of nature and the wilderness and to educate people about nature and the wilderness.

How could they accomplish their mission if they were closed?

No.

The thing I don’t understand is, if they are National Parks, how can any State take it upon themselves to close any of them? I should think the maintenance is the responsibility of the Federal Government.

@Rangie It is. They are, in fact, Federal land. No state can close one.

I’m pretty certain that the literature says that the national parks are land held in trust by the federal government for the people of the United States.

The proposed closing of State Parks in California has little to do with conservation of nature, and everything to do with Republican Politics. The undercurrent here is that the parks will reopen under the ownership of rich Republicans, for a high fee.

The National Parks are all looking to better management to minimize the impact from humans and ‘harmful nature’ as well (fires, beetles, and drought).

People will not protect what they cannot appreciate. If you close off the national parks, people will lose interest in protecting their beauty, and will end up ruining them by allowing drilling, establishing dumps, etc.

@Rangie The news peice you quote refers to state parks only and I agree with @YARNLADY that this is purely for financial reasons not preservation.

@YARNLADY Given that these are California parks, isn’t it more likely that they can’t afford to keep them running?
You know, since Cali is woefully out of money?

Edit: piece

@janbb, on the other hand dah, my bad, did anyone else hear voices out of Washington saying they might close some of the Park lands? I am sure I heard something to that effect and I will do some searching to see. Thanks for the heads up, I hate making a fool of myself, but on the other hand who really cares?:o)

This is what I heard about. link

It’s money again and a damned sahme.

If we close NP’s to protect them from human contact, it won’t be long before we forget why we are going through so much trouble to protect them, and decide to build them out and reap the profits instead.

@janbb So, I guess you read the link. Do you think they actually would do such a thing? Isn’t that public land, that we all own?

It seems to me that they are talking about closing down some services temporarily while the financial crisis is on not shutting down the parks forever. Lamentable for sure.

It’s not the people visiting the national parks that are a threat to wildlife.
It’s industry that’s doing this.

National parks are fine as is except that we started allowing people to bring their guns.

“Ah Yellowstone… so majestic. The only thing that could make this day any better is chasing down a small defenseless animal and killing it.”

@Captain_Fantasy It would be my best guess, after living in the High Sierras for 35 years, that 99% of the hunters, are not there for food because the can’t afford to feed their families. They are there for the so called sport. I don’t see the sport in killing any of the animals.
One of my hobbies, when I lived up there, was to go to the gun range and shoot at targets.
The main people that I have seen in the forest is the motorcycles, and 4 wheeling. This activity disrupts the flow of heavy rain water and causes erosion. They run over seedlings and just make a mess everywhere they go.

@Nullo No, I worked for the Los Padres National Forest for several years. I know that closing the parks will only result in excessive damage to the visitors sections of the parks, which will cost far more money in the long run. Proper management and distribution of our tax money would solve all the so-called budget problems of California, starting with collecting the unpaid taxes from thousands of non-payers, and start taxing church properties.

@YARNLADY going after the non-payers would no doubt do the trick. But, taxing the churches would be a slippery slope, I don’t think it will ever happen.

@Rangie It’s just so unfair – I live near a church that has an orchard in the back, and a large vegetable field next to it, beside a huge building surrounded by a parking lot. There is a child care center there, and the land takes up as much space as 10 houses would. I pay $2,500 property tax every year for my measly 100×60 lot, and they pay nothing!

@YARNLADY If they are making an income on the childcare center, over and above what it cost to run it, then they should pay taxes on that portion. Churches are suppose to be non-profit organizations. As for the food gardens, they probably help feed the poor.
You are not a non-profit organization.

Your partly right the parks should be closed but wide open to human contact such as off road vehicles, mining etc. we don’t need national parks and we could be using that money for tax relief. Fuck the envoroscum!

@YARNLADY It may be that the state doesn’t know about the effects of closing the parks.
I wonder how much they could get out of the illegal aliens who don’t pay their taxes.

I agree with @Rangie: taxing churches sets a dangerous precedent, on top of violating the “no government in religion” part of the First Amendment (and whatever applies on the state level).

@Rangie Can’t a non-profit have a bank account? Money to hang on to for future ministries, building maintenance, etc? Or does it have to be hand-to-mouth (as it were)?

@Nullo The only way they could not know is to ignore the Park Rangers and Park Superintendents.

@YARNLADY Honestly, I wouldn’t put that past them.
Heck, my store manager ignores things for weeks on end, and all he has to preside over is a store. And he has lots and lots of help. Radios, for instance. We lost half of our radios – the store’s nervous system – in a freak accident, and it took him a solid month to get a few replacements.