This Land Is Your Land: The National Park Service - A National Treasure

Park Ranger Marisa (Photos by Mark)  Novelist Wallace Stegner coined the phrase that America’s national parks are “the best idea we ever had.” The agency entrusted with “the best idea” also happens to have the most highly favorable (in the 70%- 80% columns) rating of any Federal agency -- for decades!  Since 1916, the National Park Service (NPS) has preserved our most beautiful places, our history, and our common values. The 433 areas within our system share a story as timeless as the natural and cultural values themselves.  One reason for this is the “gray and green” – the cadre of NPS employees. Park employees, AND our volunteer (VIPS)s, have earned their reputation as the most courteous and helpful of all public servants. As a civilian agency, their skill, training, and experience to meet the complex needs of the mission are unmatched, just like their deep care and love for the resources under their watch. Did you know that when you visit a national park area, gen...

Mark at Zion National Park, UT   (Photos by Mark)  In my last post, in Part I, I drafted a message on a magnificently modest piece of Congressional Legislation that created the National Park Service (NPS), specifically – the Organic Act of August 25, 1916.  Have a look back if you missed it. In essence, the Act of 1916 made it clear that the mission of this “new” agency was to conserve the resources for future generations, and that conservation overrides all else.  But that wasn’t the end of the story. Even before 1916, there were Parks like Sequoia and Yosemite, and certainly many Monuments. The number and diversity of park areas grew and grew over the decades, titled with many different designations: national lakeshores, national historic sites, national recreation areas, national memorials, and more.  Regardless of the many names and official designations that make up the National Park System, all represent some significant aspect of our natural, cultural, an...

Visitors check the view at Grand Teton National Park Someone once said that “the National Parks are the greatest idea America ever had. Absolutely American. Absolutely democratic. They reflect us at our best.”  Welcome to “This Land Is Your Land,” a blog where you go behind the scenes of our finest natural, cultural, and recreational resources, but, more importantly, discover today’s critical challenges facing the 433 areas of our National Park System. Over 331 million people visit our parks each year.  But while it’s “your land” now the big question is – will it still be there for your kids?    

Mark at the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site, SD (Photos by Mark) The images I posted here are some of the places I lived and worked, and flourished (Minuteman Missile National Historic Site, Rio Grande Wild & Scenic River, San Antonio Missions National Historical Park, and Big Bend National Park).  Did you know that the NPS has traditionally had the highest public approval rating (in the 70% - 80% favorable column) of any federal agency for decades? Even today, in this time of social challenges, America’s national park areas remain number one. But do most people really “understand” the National Park System/and Service – the history, the purpose, the values?  Authors have written many chapters about the beginnings of the NPS. One chapter shows that it wasn’t created overnight. Instead, the script for the Bill to create a “Park Service” (in 1916) was a result of several years of discussion, debate, and lobbying by 16 individuals meeting off-and-on in the DC apartmen...