Preserving Nature in the National Parks

Preserving Nature in the National Parks PDF Author: Richard West Sellars
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300075786
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 424

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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.

Preserving Nature in the National Parks

Preserving Nature in the National Parks PDF Author: Richard West Sellars
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300075786
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 424

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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.

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

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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.

Preserving Nature in the National Parks

Preserving Nature in the National Parks PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Conservation of natural resources
Languages : en
Pages : 47

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Book Description


The Capacity for Wonder

The Capacity for Wonder PDF Author: William Lowry
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 9780815720232
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 302

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Book Description
The national parks of North America are great public treasures, visited by 300 million people each year. Set aside to be kept in relatively natural condition, these remarkable places of forests, rivers, mountains, and wildlife still inspire our "capacity for wonder." Today, however, the parks are threatened by increasingly difficult problems from both inside and outside their borders. This book, enriched with personal anecdotes of the author's trips throughout the parks of North America, examines changes in the park services of the United States and Canada over the past fifteen years. William Lowry describes the many challenges facing the parks—such as rising crime, tourism, and overcrowding, pollution, eroding funding for environmental research, and the contentious debate over preservation versus use—and the abilities of the agencies to deal with them. The Capacity for Wonder provides a revealing comparison of the U.S. National Park Service (NPS) and the Canadian Parks Service (CPS). The author explains that, while the services are similar in many ways, the priorities of these two agencies have changed dramatically in recent years. Lowry shows how increasing conflicts over agency goals and decreasing institutional support have make the NPS vulnerable to interagency disputes, reluctant to take any risks in its operations, and extremely responsive to political pressures. As a result, U.S. national parks are now managed mainly to serve political purposes. Lowry illustrates how in the 1980s politicians pushed the NPS to expand private uses of national parks through development, timber harvesting, grazing, and mining, while environmental groups push the NPS in the other direction. Over the same period, the CPS enjoyed a clarification of goals and increased institutional supports. As a result, the CPS has been able to decentralize its structure, empower its employees, and renew its commitment to preservation. Lowry considers several proposals to change the institutions governing the parks. His own recommendations are more in line with proposals to revitalize public agencies than with those that suggest replacing them with private enterprise, state agencies, or endowment boards. Lowry concludes that preserving nature should be the primary, explicit goal of the park services, and he calls for a stronger commitment to that goal in the United States.

Wildlife Research and Management in the National Parks

Wildlife Research and Management in the National Parks PDF Author: R. Gerald Wright
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 9780252018244
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
Should the wolf be reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park? Should hunting of "overabundant" deer and elk be permitted in some parks? How should grizzly bears be managed in frequently visited areas? Are mountain goats to be eliminated from Olympic National Park? R. Gerald Wright probes these and other issues of public interest in this exploration of the unique role national parks have played in the protection, study, and management of animal life. Controversy has often surrounded wildlife management, primarily when societal attitudes toward specific animals do not mesh with Park Service practices. Those practices are influenced by the public as well as by the evolution of a program of scientific study in the national parks. As park environments are increasingly threatened by growing numbers of visitors, outside land-use changes, and pollution, it is more important than ever that scientific knowledge, administrative willingness, and public support combine to help create the policies necessary for appropriate management and protection of park resources. Wright traces the history of wildlife management in the U.S. national parks, bringing together a diversity of literature and previously unpublished information that will be of concern to wildlife and land-management specialists, conservationists, and all those interested in our national parks.

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

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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.

Building the National Parks

Building the National Parks PDF Author: Linda Flint McClelland
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 9780801855832
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 652

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Book Description
The Office of Strategic Services, the forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency, was founded in 1942 by William 'Wild Bill' Donovan under the direction of President Roosevelt, who realized the need to improve intelligence during wartime. A rigorous recruitment process enlisted agents from both the armed services and civilians to produce operational groups specializing in different foreign areas including Italy, Norway, Yugoslavia and China. At its peak in 1944, the number of men and women working in the service totaled nearly 13,500. This intriguing story of the origins and development of the American espionage forces covers all of the different departments involved, with a particular emphasis on the courageous teams operating in the field. The volume is illustrated with many photographs, including images from the film director John Ford who led the OSS Photographic Unit and parachuted into Burma in 1943.

Mapping America's National Parks

Mapping America's National Parks PDF Author:
Publisher: Esri Press
ISBN: 9781589485464
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description


National Parks

National Parks PDF Author: Angus O'Reilly
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781614703464
Category : Biodiversity conservation
Languages : en
Pages : 214

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Book Description
"National Parks (NPs) are mainly designed to protect the remaining 'wilderness' of a given country and have primarily focused on the conservation of extraordinary areas or emblematic species. National parks have many roles among which 'preserving nature' has become a matter of considerable social, political, economical and scientific concern. One of the major problems concerning National Parks is how to preserve their landscapes and biodiversity. While the diversity of plants and animals can be experimentally assessed, their protection involves the maintenance of their ecosystems and periodic monitoring. Any change in an environment can certainly have some effect on the plants and animals living there and so, the consequences of changes at a variety of scales is hard to predict although variations often lead to a reduction or homogenization of animal and plant diversity. In the long run, the positive role played by National Parks for nature conservation and tourism will be maintained if we ensure that social, economic and environmental goals are closely aligned. This new important book gathers the latest research in this field."--Publisher's description.

Dispossessing the Wilderness

Dispossessing the Wilderness PDF Author: Mark David Spence
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199880689
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 201

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Book Description
National parks like Yellowstone, Yosemite, and Glacier preserve some of this country's most cherished wilderness landscapes. While visions of pristine, uninhabited nature led to the creation of these parks, they also inspired policies of Indian removal. By contrasting the native histories of these places with the links between Indian policy developments and preservationist efforts, this work examines the complex origins of the national parks and the troubling consequences of the American wilderness ideal. The first study to place national park history within the context of the early reservation era, it details the ways that national parks developed into one of the most important arenas of contention between native peoples and non-Indians in the twentieth century.