A Report by the Advisory Committee to the National Park Service on Research of the National Academy of Sciences - National Research Council

A Report by the Advisory Committee to the National Park Service on Research of the National Academy of Sciences - National Research Council PDF Author: National Research Council (U.S.). Advisory Committee to the National Park Service on Research
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Conservation of natural resources
Languages : en
Pages : 176

Get Book Here

Book Description

A Report by the Advisory Committee to the National Park Service on Research of the National Academy of Sciences - National Research Council

A Report by the Advisory Committee to the National Park Service on Research of the National Academy of Sciences - National Research Council PDF Author: National Research Council (U.S.). Advisory Committee to the National Park Service on Research
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Conservation of natural resources
Languages : en
Pages : 176

Get Book Here

Book Description


Science and the National Parks

Science and the National Parks PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309047811
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 137

Get Book Here

Book Description
The U.S. National Park Service needs much better scientific information to protect the nation's parks for future generations, and research must be an essential element in its mandate. Science and the National Parks examines the reasons why science is important to the national parks, reviews previous evaluations of research in the parks, and recommends ways to improve the current science program. The book stresses the need for two distinct but related approaches to research, called "science for the parks" and "parks for science." Science for the parks includes research to gain understanding of park resources and develop effective management strategies. The parks for science concept recognizes that the national parks are potentially very important to scientific investigations of broad national and global environmental problems and invaluable for understanding the ecological response to anthropogenic change. Science and the National Parks is a critical assessment of the problems hampering the current Park Service science program, providing strong recommendations to help the agency establish a true mandate for science, create separate funding and autonomy for the program, and enhance its credibility and quality.

National Parks Forever

National Parks Forever PDF Author: Jonathan B. Jarvis
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226819108
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 248

Get Book Here

Book Description
Two leaders of the National Park Service provide a front-row seat to the disastrous impact of partisan politics over the past fifty years—and offer a bold vision for the parks’ future. The US National Parks, what environmentalist and historian Wallace Stegner called America’s “best idea,” are under siege. Since 1972, partisan political appointees in the Department of the Interior have offered two conflicting views of the National Park Service (NPS): one vision emphasizes preservation and science-based decision-making, and another prioritizes economic benefits and privatization. These politically driven shifts represent a pernicious, existential threat to the very future of our parks. For the past fifty years, brothers Jonathan B. and T. Destry Jarvis have worked both within and outside NPS as leaders and advocates. National Parks Forever interweaves their two voices to show how our parks must be protected from those who would open them to economic exploitation, while still allowing generations to explore and learn in them. Their history also details how Congress and administration appointees have used budget and staffing cuts to sabotage NPS’s ability to manage the parks and even threatened their existence. Drawing on their experience, Jarvis and Jarvis make a bold and compelling proposal: that it is time for NPS to be removed from the Department of the Interior and made an independent agency, similar to the Smithsonian Institution, giving NPS leaders the ability to manage park resources and plan our parks’ protection, priorities, and future.

Science, Conservation, and National Parks

Science, Conservation, and National Parks PDF Author: Steven R. Beissinger
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022642314X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 455

Get Book Here

Book Description
“An eclectic, enjoyable mix of literature reviews, personal experience and case studies, and practical advice from . . . leaders in their subdisciplines.” —Eleanor J. Sterling, Chief Conservation Scientist, Center for Biodiversity & Conservation, American Museum of Natural History With the US National Park Service over one hundred years old, parks and protected areas worldwide are under increasing threat from storms and fires of greater severity, plant and animal extinctions, the changing attitudes of a public that has become more urbanized, and the political pressures of narrow special interest groups. In the face of such rapid environmental and cultural changes, Science, Conservation, and National Parks gathers a group of renowned scholars—including Edward O. Wilson, Jane Lubchenco, Thomas Dietz, and Monica Turner—who address these problems and in the hope of securing a future for protected areas that will push forward the frontiers of biological, physical, and social science in and for parks. Contributors provide answers to a number of key conservation questions, such as: How should stewardship address climate change, urban encroachment and pollution, and invasive species? How can society, especially youth, become more engaged with nature and parks? What are appropriate conservation objectives for parks in the Anthropocene? Charting a course for the parks of the next century, Science, Conservation, and National Parks catalyzes the continued evolution of US park conservation policy, and serves as an inspiration for parks, conservation, and management worldwide. “Offers a refreshing holistic treatment of the linkages and mutual dependencies between parks and science. Compelling.” —William B. Monahan, USDA Forest Service and formerly of the US National Park Service “This is a testament to what can be achieved by determined conservationists.” —Biodiversity and Conservation journal

Preserving Nature in the National Parks

Preserving Nature in the National Parks PDF Author: Richard West Sellars
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300154143
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 440

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book traces the epic clash of values between traditional scenery-and-tourism management and emerging ecological concepts in the national parks, America's most treasured landscapes. It spans the period from the creation of Yellowstone National Park in 1872 to near the present, analyzing the management of fires, predators, elk, bear, and other natural phenomena in parks such as Yellowstone, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, and Great Smoky Mountains. Based largely on original documents never before researched, this is the most thorough history of the national parks ever written. Focusing on the decades after the National Park Service was established in 1916, the author reveals the dynamics of policy formulation and change, as landscape architects, foresters, wildlife biologists, and other Park Service professionals contended for dominance and shaped the attitudes and culture of the Service. The book provides a fresh look at the national parks and an analysis of why the Service has not responded in full faith to the environmental concerns of recent times. Richard West Sellars, a historian with the National Park Service, has become uniquely familiar with the history, culture, and dynamics of the Service?including its biases, internal alliances and rivalries, self-image, folklore, and rhetoric. The book will prove indispensable for environmental and governmental specialists and for general readers seeking an in-depth analysis of one of America's most admired federal bureaus.

Science and Ecosystem Management in the National Parks

Science and Ecosystem Management in the National Parks PDF Author: William L. Halvorson
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 0816552401
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 377

Get Book Here

Book Description
Our national parks are more than mere recreational destinations. They are repositories of the nation's biological diversity and contain some of the last ecosystem remnants needed as standards to set reasonable goals for sustainable development throughout the land. Nevertheless, public pressure for recreation has largely precluded adequate research and resource monitoring in national parks, and ignorance of ecosystem structure and function in parks has led to costly mistakes--such as predator control and fire suppression--that continue to threaten parks today. This volume demonstrates the value of ecological knowledge in protecting parks and shows how modest investments in knowledge of park ecosystems can pay handsome dividends. Science and Ecosystem Management in the National Parks presents twelve case studies of long-term research conducted in and around national parks that address major natural resource issues. These cases demonstrate how the use of longer time scales strongly influence our understanding of ecosystems and how interpretations of short-term patterns in nature often change when viewed in the context of long-term data sets. Most importantly, they show conclusively that scientific research significantly reduces uncertainty and improves resource management decisions. Chosen by scientists and senior park managers, the cases offer a broad range of topics, including: air quality at Grand Canyon; interaction between moose and wolf populations on Isle Royale; control of exotic species in Hawaiian parks; simulation of natural fire in the parks of the Sierra Nevada; and the impact of urban expansion on Saguaro National Monument. Because national parks are increasingly beset with conflicting views of their management, the need for knowledge of park ecosystems becomes even more critical--not only for the parks themselves, but for what they can tell us about survival in the rest of our world. This book demonstrates to policymakers and managers that decisions based on knowledge of ecosystems are more enduring and cost effective than decisions derived from uninformed consensus. It also provides scientists with models for designing research to meet threats to our most precious natural resources. "If we can learn to save the parks," observe Halvorson and Davis, "perhaps we can learn to save the world."

Pilgrimage to the National Parks

Pilgrimage to the National Parks PDF Author: Lynn Ross-Bryant
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0415893801
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 328

Get Book Here

Book Description
National Parks - 'America's Best Idea' - were from the first seen as sacred sites embodying the God-given specialness of American people and American land, and from the first they were also marked as tourist attractions. The inherent tensions between these two realities ensured the parks would be stages where the country's conflicting values would be performed and contested. As pilgrimage sites embody the values and beliefs of those who are drawn to them, so Americans could travel to these sacred places to honor, experience, and be restored by the powers that had created the American land and the American enterprise. This book explores the importance of the discourse of nature in American culture, arguing that the attributes and symbolic power that had first been associated with the 'new world' and then the 'frontier' were embodied in the National Parks. Author Ross-Bryant focuses on National Parks as pilgrimage sites around which a discourse of nature developed and argues the centrality of religion in understanding the dynamics of both the language and the ritual manifestations related to National Parks. Beyond the specific contribution to a richer analysis of the National Parks and their role in understanding nature and religion in the U.S., this volume contributes to the emerging field of 'religion and the environment,' larger issues in the study of religion (e.g. cultural events and the spatial element in meaning-making), and the study of non-institutional religion.

America's National Park System

America's National Park System PDF Author: Lary M. Dilsaver
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442256842
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 507

Get Book Here

Book Description
Now in a fully updated edition, this invaluable reference work is a fundamental resource for scholars, students, conservationists, and citizens interested in America's national park system. The extensive collection of documents illustrates the system's creation, development, and management. The documents include laws that established and shaped the system; policy statements on park management; Park Service self-evaluations; and outside studies by a range of scientists, conservation organizations, private groups, and businesses. A new appendix includes summaries of pivotal court cases that have further interpreted the Park Service mission.

Usable Knowledge

Usable Knowledge PDF Author: Gary E. Machlis
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Social sciences
Languages : en
Pages : 90

Get Book Here

Book Description


Hearings, Reports and Prints of the Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs

Hearings, Reports and Prints of the Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs PDF Author: United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Legislative hearings
Languages : en
Pages : 1306

Get Book Here

Book Description