Science in Protected Areas

Research and Resource Management in the U.S. National Park Service

The George Wright Society closely follows developments related to research and resource management in NPS, for both natural and cultural resources. Within the agency, research and resource management have had a checkered history: for decades NPS paid far more attention to visitor services and infrastructure development than to understanding the resources in the parks. That is now beginning to change.

A significant step came in 1997 with the publication of "Preserving Nature in the National Parks: A History," by former GWS president Richard West Sellars (published by Yale University Press). Widely recognized as a path-breaking book, this study demonstrated conclusively how NPS had neglected natural resource research and management throughout most of its history--the brief tenure of George Wright being a notable exception. Sellars recounts in depth the "persistent tension between national park management for aesthetic purposes"--which is where NPS traditionally placed the emphasis--"and management for ecological purposes." As he notes:

The central dilemma of national park management has long been the question of exactly what in a park should be preserved. Is it the scenery--the resplendent landscapes of forests, streams, wildflowers, and majestic mammals? Or is it the integrity of each park's entire natural system, including not just the biological and scenic superstars, but also the vast array of less compelling species, such as grasses, lichens, and mice? The incredible beauty of the national parks has always given the impression that scenry alone is what makes them worthwhile and deserving of protection. Scenery has provided the primary inspiration for national parks and, through tourism, their primary justification. Thus, a kind of 'façade' management became the accepted practice in parks: protecting and enhancing the scenic façade of nature for the public's enjoyment, but with scant scientific knowledge and little concern for biological consequences.

Sellars's book received wide play both within and outside the NPS, and set the stage for reform.

Another major advance took place in late 1998 with the congressional passage of a Research Mandate for the U.S. National Park System. The mandate is spelled out in Title II of the National Parks Omnibus Management Act of 1998 (P.L. 105-391), and is also known as the "Thomas Bill" after its primary sponsor, Senator Craig Thomas of Wyoming. As David Harmon put it in his analysis "The New Research Mandate for America's National Park System," Title II contains "something that no less than a dozen blue-ribbon panels (going back to the Leopold Committee and Robbins Committee of 1963) have called for: an explicit legal mandate for research within the National Park System--research that is to be used to guide and support the management of the parks." The mandate applies to both natural and cultural resources, and requires superintendents and other officials to base decisions upon sound, research-based information rather than intuition or guesswork.

 

In August 1999, NPS completed work on on its Natural Resources Challenge: The National Park Service's Action Plan for Preserving Natural Resources. Over a year in the making, the Challenge differs from previous NPS pronouncements of faith in science. First, unlike previous efforts, the Challenge has the support of key leaders within the agency, starting with Director Robert Stanton. Second, it is a funding initiative, asking from Congress more than $100 million over the period FY2000-2004. (Congress funded a large portion of the first-year request.) Third, the Challenge includes provisions for getting more resource managers into top positions within NPS.

You can also read recent issues of the fine USNPS newsletter Park Science on-line through this link. The newsletters is in both pdf and html formats.

 

CLASSIC TEXTS IN NPS RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

The NPS historian Harry Butowsky has converted a number of hard-to-find or out-of-print documents to HTML format. The pages are attractively laid out with good formatting and an easy-to-use side-column navbar. All texts are complete except for illustrations. An invaluable resource! All of the header links below will take you to an NPS server.

There are numerous other NPS-related on-line books, including many administrative histories of individual parks.

Science in Parks Canada and the Canadian National Park System

Also from Canada is a fine Web site with a range of biological reports, workshop proceedings, and newsletters (examples: effects of mercury, biodiversity monitoring, remote sensing) from the Ecological Monitoring and Assessment Network.