The U.S.’s National Parks are often referred to as “America’s Best Idea.” This week also happens to be National Parks Week. I wanted to take this time to learn some things I might not have known about the National Park Service. Hopefully, You will learn something as well.
Brief History
March 1, 1872 Yellowstone National Park was established. Now over 100 different nations have National Parks, totaling over 1200 total in the world. Many, however, are not as protected as the ones in the United States. These parks are in place not not only preserve the land, but also the wildlife that lives within. Today there are more than 400 national parks in the US. Covering an AMAZING amount of land, 84 million acres. To put that into perspective, only 4 states have a larger area than the total area of all these parks!
The Department of Interior is the governing body over our National Parks. In 1916 the National Park Service was created to protect our parks and monuments. Currently the National Park service employs only about 20,000 people. However, in 2019 almost 300,000 people volunteered in our parks. These people help maintain, preserve, and protect the land and wildlife within the parks.
What keeps the parks running
As you can see, keeping these parks running, and protected relies heavily on volunteer work. It takes a lot of work to protect and maintain the land, water and wildlife. While these parks are public land, owned by the citizens of the united stated, they are more than just beautiful places to visit. Public Lands provide carbon-reducing landscapes. They cleanse the air, water, fill aquifers, and protect wildlife habitat. National Parks can also significantly contribute to the economic well being of the areas they are in. Camping and access to National Parks generally comes with a fee.
National Parks do offer a wide variety of recreational possibilities for visitors. Depending on the specific park, the activities allowed may vary. Generally, though, camping, hiking, viewing wildlife are among people’s favorites. In some parks you can fish, hunt, boat, and horse back ride. Not to mention, just experiencing the land as it has been, and all the history. One of the biggest difference between out National Parks, and National Forests are that in the parks you can not alter the landscape, or remove/alter the natural landscape. Sometimes you can remove firewood, pan for gold, or various other things inside of a National Forest. You, however, can not do these types of things inside of a park.
Where do they get their funding
National Parks generally get their funding through congress. Some of their funds are mandatory funds, while others are annual appropriations. They are also funded directly through the fee’s, and private donations. In my opinion the federal funding, if you look at the budgets, are not enough and donating time or money is a great way to support these national treasures. You can also donate directly to specific parks. Without getting into politics on this page, if you’re an outdoorsman/woman of any sort protecting these public lands is something we can all agree on.
If you are interested in learning more about National Parks you can visit their official website. The National Parks Foundation has information on how to donate and volunteer. If you like this sort of content, be sure to check us out on Instagram, Twitter, and our Podcast. You can also find out podcast on Spotify and Google and will be coming to Itunes shortly. This week’s episode will be on, you guessed it, our National Parks and should be out Thursday morning.