Preview

National Park Overurbanization

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
727 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
National Park Overurbanization
President Woodrow Wilson signed a bill in 1916 that created the National Park Service. The National Park Service had the distinct roles of “conserving the scenery and national and historic objects and wildlife… [and] leaving [the parks] unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.” However, less than sixty years later, the protected lands were in danger of destruction. In 1972, specialists at the World Conference on National Parks stated that overcrowding and overurbanization threatened the role of national parks as safe havens for both animals and humans. Yellowstone was America’s first national park. It was established by Congress in 1872 in an effort to conserve America’s lands. The designated roles of national parks were as safe …show more content…
A common idea that arose from the World Conference was the phasing out or complete outlawing of automobiles. One attendee of the Conference stated that “automobiles can destroy our national park heritage just as surely as they have desecrated much of the metropolitan countryside.” Another solution that was proposed was prohibiting the building of luxury hotels, golf courses, and other unnecessary urban buildings within park boundaries. This would eliminate the destruction of park lands and decrease overurbanization. The World Conference officials and specialists discussed other ways to keep national park lands safe as well. They debated the construction of more day areas instead of overnight campgrounds and the use of permits to control visitor population. These solutions would limit the number of people in the national parks at a given time and also decrease the amount of pollution to hopefully protect the parks in the long …show more content…
Over six days, they discussed the importance of national parks and how to protect them for future generations. They debated several solutions such as the banning of automobiles, prohibiting the building of tourist facilities within park boundaries, and the use of permits. These people all believed in what Stewart Udall stated in his concluding paragraph, “we cannot save the parks unless we slow down and listen for the subtle rhythms of nature.” Only then could the national parks of the world be

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    Briefly, the summary judgment facts of St. John v. Pope (1995) noted that Pope, who had recently undergone back pain surgery and epidural injections at Round Rock Hospital, went to the Central Texas Medical Center emergency room in San Marcos for back pain and fever. The emergency room physician, at Central Texas Medical Center, telephoned St. John, the on-call physician, who recommended Pope be referred to the Round Rock Hospital, where his surgeon was on staff. However, when Round Rock Hospital’s emergency room refused to accept Pope, he went home. The following day in a hospital in Austin, a lumbar puncture revealed Pope was suffering from meningitis, which resulted in permanent disabilities (St. John v. Pope, 1995).…

    • 117 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Unit 9 D1

    • 618 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Another political issue that the locals were concerned about was the tourism industry harming the natural environment. The government wants the travel industry to grow but also without harming the natural environment.…

    • 618 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Long Term: The Antiquities Act of 1906 signed by Theodore Roosevelt is the original authority for nearly a quarter of the 413 sites that make up the national park system. The Antiquities Act lead to more than 100 million acres of national forests. Now there are national wildlife refuges in every state. Theodore create wildlife revitalization and…

    • 138 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Never has a man left the embrace of nature once he found himself enamored by it; this infatuation is found in both John Muir’s and Aldo Leopold’s writing, a sense of wanting to protect this deity they call Mother Nature, a moral and ethical responsibility which every human being has to this Mother. Both John Muir and Aldo Leopold recount their almost romantic encounter with Mother Nature in their books Our National Parks and A Sand County Almanac, respectively. However, in both books it is notable that each man carries instilled in the very fiber of their being a sense of dissatisfaction toward the process of mechanization and industrialization; processes which unfortunately…

    • 1225 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Cyp 3.1 Task Analysis

    • 1512 Words
    • 7 Pages

    A staff meeting would be carried out prior the outing to discuss the aim of the park visit, ratio requirements for such outing, any circumstances that need to be considered, the policies and guidelines will be gone…

    • 1512 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    In his essay “Glen Canyon Submersus” Wallace Stegner writes “In gaining the lovely and the usable, we have given up the incomparable” (509). In this quote he is talking about the loss of Glen Canyon during the creation of Lake Powell, and more broadly, talking about how national parks often destroy wildernesses despite their apparent usefulness. Glen Canyon is only one of thousands of examples of an environment being destroyed by a government funded park system. There are several theorized reasons for why parks are often harmful to the environment as well as many possible solutions for this problem as well. But so far, the majority of national parks in the world are harmful to both the natural environment…

    • 2701 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    No Dogs Allowed

    • 733 Words
    • 3 Pages

    1. Who benefits from the construction of the park? How should the park be distributed? What feedback will the citizens reciprocate? Will management of the park promote progress and inspire future projects?…

    • 733 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Over its three centuries of existence, America has had 45 presidents sitting in the White House OK. One of my personal favorites was President Theodore Roosevelt, who led America from 1901 to 1909 OK. During his time as president, Roosevelt possessed many qualities that made him an exceptional head of state, including his anti-trust views, his conservationism, and his distaste for how terrible the workers’ treatment is. Theodore Roosevelt became president during a period of great contrast between the rich and the poor. Unlike his predecessor William McKinley, who wealthy industrialists elected, Roosevelt actively opposed them and their exploitation of the poor (“The Americans: Reconstruction to the 21st Century”).…

    • 764 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Muir and Abbey

    • 1014 Words
    • 3 Pages

    It is difficult to find writers more passionate about the natural environment than John Muir and Edward Abbey. Both Muir in a section from his book A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf and Abbey in a chapter titled Polemic: Industrial Tourism and the National Parks channel anger and frustration at the environmental policies of their time into literature that argues fervently for preservation of national parks and other areas of wilderness. In Hetch Hetchy Valley, Muir reverently describes in vivid detail the beautiful landscape of a river valley in Yosemite called the Hetch Hetchy Valley, condemning anyone who supports a government plan to dam the Hetch Hetchy River and flood the valley. In a famous quote Muir says, “no holier temple has ever been consecrated by the heart of man” (Muir 112). Abbey employs a highly sarcastic and satirical tone to outline the consequences of further expansion of roads and highways into national parks. He aims to incite anger with sharp language and insults to draw the reader in emotionally. “This is a courageous view, admirable in its simplicity and power… It is also quite insane” (Abbey 422). Both pieces easily stand alone, but when looked at together they suggest even more strongly that it is deceptive and dishonest to advertise industrialization of wilderness as any kind of favorable progress for society. This “progress” does not actually benefit anyone. Those who proclaim this as their reason for supporting industrial development are more likely motivated by the short-term economic benefits they will receive.…

    • 1014 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    This was to gain support in creating a national park in the state of Hawaii. January 20, 1916 was the date of the fourth and final draft of the Hawaii National Park bill; this was introduced by Jonah Kuhio. The committees met and on April 17 the House approved the bill. Then the Senate followed and on August 1, 1916; our president at the time President Wilson signed the bill into law and created the twelfth National Park. It wasn't until five years later that a group of people got together at the crater for the dedication of the Hawaii National Park. In the early years of this park the five year period was due to a restriction in one of the clauses which required that the park be "reasonably accessible in all of its parts" before the public funds could be used to maintain and develop areas of the park. The first superintendent of the Hawaii National Park came into office in April of 1922. His name was Thomas R. Boles; he was also an engineer by training. He had the first park headquarters built in 1923 by the parks staff and…

    • 739 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Everglades National Park is the largest subtropical wilderness in the U.S, and it protects an unrivaled landscape that provides vital habitat for many rare, exotic, and endangered species, which includes including the American Crocodile, the Florida Panther, and the West Indian Manatee. This national treasure and designated World Heritage Site, and International Biosphere Reserve, and Wetland of International Importance is an expansive area of land in South Florida, consisting of 1.5 million acres of wetland that features one of the world’s most diverse ecosystems. Realizing the importance of this fragile ecosystem, in 1934, Congress established the Everglades as a National Park., and in 1947 President Harry S. Truman dedicated the park.…

    • 363 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the early 20th century many parks and forests were finally getting recognition and being preserved for the future. National parks and forests have been included in society for so long that without them, nothing would really be the same. Most places like this would be a surprising fact to have known about in the 19th- 20th century because most people would talk about urbanization in the big cities. The gilded age took place in the early years of the 20th century which was the period where the U.S. really started the whole economic growth change. It was the age of fast industrialization and urbanization mostly happening in the more factory based cities with not much natural or healthy conditions. Before the gilded age was the progressive era,…

    • 551 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The argument from design is an analogy and works by comparing the universe to an object. An example of the comparison would be to say the world resembles a car. All cars have creators, therefore, the world has to have a creator, and that must be God. The argument concludes by saying by observing the world we can gather evidence that the intelligence of a human that creates a car, bike or some other item resembles, in a less perfect form, God. However, Hume thinks this argument fails.…

    • 809 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Wow… I’m at Yellowstone National Park, which was the first national park that was established on March 1, 1872, by the Yellowstone National Park Protection Act. I can see why Congress thought to establish this park since they hired a professional artist to go and see where they were “helping to save Yellowstone from private development.” As they say in the official National Park Service website, "Jackson's photographs, Moran's paintings, and Elliot's sketches-had caught the imagination of Congress," but their reports weren't the only ones. There were other artists and explorers who followed in their steps to persuade Congress to pass the bill, and with all of their work, President Ulysses S. Grant signed it, putting the Park Protection Act into business.…

    • 666 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Research Proposal

    • 1872 Words
    • 8 Pages

    * Hostelling, H. (1947), “The Economics of Public Recreation: The Prewitt Report”. Washington D.C: National Park Series.…

    • 1872 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays